Listeria risk prompts Dole recall

Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc. is recalling from the market all Dole-branded and private label packaged salads processed at its Bessemer City, NC, and its Yuma, AZ, production facilities due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. and is also temporarily suspending operations at both facilities to conduct an extensive cleaning and sanitation protocol. The company estimated the one-off cost associated with this temporary suspension will be between $15 million and $25 million.

Products subject to the recall and states affected can be found here.  

This suspension of operations and recall are being performed Dole out of an abundance of caution in collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The decision to suspend operations and recall all products from these facilities was made after analyzing the strain of Listeria monocytogenes isolated in a single package of Dole-branded Garden Salad produced in the Bessemer City facility and a single package of shredded iceberg lettuce produced in the Yuma, AZ facility. 

Both of those items were randomly sampled by the state of Georgia and the state of Michigan, respectively, and were a genetic match with a strain of Listeria monocytogenes, which FDA and CDC believe is responsible for 16 illnesses since 2014.

No products produced from Dole facilities in Springfield, OH, or Soledad, CA, are included in these voluntary recalls. In addition, no other Dole products, including “ready-to-eat” salad products, fresh fruit, and field-packed fresh vegetables, are part of these voluntary recalls.