Cucumbers identified as likely cause of E. coli outbreak at Jimmy John’s
Cucumbers identified as likely cause of E. coli outbreak at Jimmy John’s
Colorado officials say one lot of cucumbers traced to a farm in Mexico is likely the cause of an E. coli outbreak of patrons who ate at three Jimmy John’s locations in the Denver metropolitan area in 2013.
The sandwich chain is being blamed for the E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak during October 2013 that involved at least nine people. All nine patrons recalled eating cucumbers, and disease investigators suspected tomatoes and lettuce but found there was no common lot shipped to all three restaurants.
“To our knowledge, this is the first E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with cucumbers reported in the United States,” the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment said in a Dec. 4 report on the outbreak. “Public health and food-safety officials should be aware that cucumbers may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, which could cause sporadic E. coli O157:H7 infections as well as outbreaks.”
Colorado health authorities inspected Jimmy John’s and the produce supplier to the three fast-food restaurants, Denver-based Colo-Pac Produce Inc. But food and environmental samples tested negative for the deadly bacteria. “Given that cucumbers are a perishable food item, we were unable to recover any cucumbers from the implicated lot for testing,” CDPHE said. It is still unknown at what point the cucumbers may have become contaminated.
Records from Colo-Pac Produce Inc. showed one lot of 84 cucumbers received from GR Produce Inc. in McAllen, TX, and shipped to Colo-Pac on Sept. 26, 2013. The suspected cucumbers were only distributed to the sandwich chain.
As part of the investigation, health authorities said they considered collecting samples from employees of the sandwich chain and Colo-Pac produce to look for food handler illnesses, but “decided not to do this given the lack of illness reported in food handlers, the amount of public health resources needed to collect and test stool from over 100 staff members from the four entities, and the evidence that the source of the outbreak was likely a contaminated food served at multiple Jimmy John’s locations.”
Bill Marler, founder of Seattle-based MarlerClark, pointed out that Jimmy John’s has been linked to past outbreaks, at least five in recent years caused by tainted sprouts or lettuce.
Last year, FDA added two Mexican companies to an import alert after 84 people in 18 states were sickened by Salmonella-contaminated cucumbers.
