Earlier today, the New Mexico Department of Health announced a link to E. coli O157 in an opened, leftover bag of spinach from a case patient, says a media release from Earthbound Farm.
The product was conventional spinach, packed in Earthbound Farm’s facility. The strain matched the outbreak strain. This news confirmed their decision to go out early with a voluntary recall.
The US Food & Drug Administration and California Department of Health Services investigators were in the Earthbound Farms facility on Friday, taking environmental samples from our processing facility for testing. At the same time as the government inspectors, scientists from an independent, third-party laboratory did identical sampling and testing.
The FDA and CDHS on Tuesday had inspectors in 9 fields identified in a traceback as the possible source of the spinach, including the bag with a positive match in New Mexico.