The Gainesville company whose bulk boiled eggs were connected with a deadly listeria outbreak is now advising consumers to throw away some of its products in smaller retail packaging.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned last week that Almark Foods boiled eggs sold in large plastic pails to restaurants and stores could be contaminated with the same strain as the listeria outbreak blamed for a death. The product was being used to make dishes such as deviled eggs and egg salad. This week, Almark is expanding its recall to include packaged boiled eggs found on store shelves under a variety of brand names. The product is often sold in plastic bags containing half a dozen or fewer eggs, referred to as "pillow packs." It also comes in other variants, including what's known as "protein kit" products.
Almark says in a statement that it is acting voluntarily, "out of an abundance of caution," the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports on its website. The expanded recall is for all Almark boiled eggs with "best if used by" dates through March 2 where the date code starts with a "G." That letter designates the company's Gainesville plant, the only location whose boiled eggs are subject to the recall. (For kits, check the date on the egg packaging.)
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Affected brands besides Almark Foods are 7 Select, Best Choice, CMI, Dairy Fresh, Deb-El, Eggland’s Best, Everyday Essentials, Farmers Hen House, Food Club, Fresh Thyme, Giant Eagle, Great Day, Great Value, Inspired Organics, Kirkland Signature, Kroger, LIDL, Lucerne, Members Mark, Naturally Better, Nellie’s, O Organics, Peckish, Pete & Gerry’s, Rainbow Farms, Rembrandt Foods, ShopRite, Simple Truth Organics, Sunshine, Vital Farms and Wild Harvest.
The products are sold at major Georgia grocery outlets, such as Kroger, Publix and Walmart. Other stores expanded the recall further by identifying secondary products on their shelves that were made with Almark eggs. Trader Joe's, for instance, announced that two of its products — Egg White Salad with Chives and Old Fashioned Potato Salad — could be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
Seven cases of the Listeria monocytogenes infection have been reported across five states, with one death in Texas, according to the CDC. None was reported in Georgia, but the genetic strain of the disease was linked to contamination discovered at the Gainesville Almark plant last spring.
The company told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that the connection was based on samples taken during a routine FDA inspection in March, before the plant was decontaminated.
"A more recent FDA sample from the facility also matched the outbreak strain, suggesting the possibility that the strain may have remained present in the facility," the company subsequently announced this week.
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