Dole is known for bananas, pineapples, and its famous Dole Whip — but what happens when the ingredients the company claims are "Powering you" leave you with watery diarrhea instead?
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00:00Dole is known for bananas, pineapples, and its famous Dole Whip. But what happens when
00:05the ingredients the company claims are powering you leave you with watery diarrhea instead?
00:11One word that causes instant panic in the food industry is listeria. In February 2024,
00:16this was the term that launched a mass recall from Dole after the discovery that some of
00:20its salad kits were potentially contaminated with listeria monocytogenes.
00:24Listeria is different from most other bacteria because it can grow in the refrigerator and
00:28spread to other food.
00:30This bacteria can cause nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea in healthy patients, and
00:35can be fatal to young children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. It's also been
00:39linked to stillbirths and miscarriages.
00:41Alarm bells were raised after it was found that the salad kits, including Chopped Kit
00:45Avocado Ranch, Supreme Kit Southwest Salad, and Salad Kit Bacon Ranch Crunch, were processed
00:51alongside a line of cheese that was recalled by Rizzo Lopez Foods due to listeria contamination.
00:55Dole made a public statement, reading,
00:57"...this recall notification is being issued due to the potential for cross-contamination
01:01of cheese contained in certain master packs by cheese potentially contaminated with listeria
01:06monocytogenes from our packaged cheese supplier."
01:08The salads had already been distributed across 25 states, plus Alberta, British Columbia,
01:13New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec and Canada. Anyone who'd recently purchased a Dole salad
01:18was urged to check that no affected packages were lurking in their refrigerator or freezer
01:22and throw them away if they were discovered there. The products in question were marked
01:26with best-if-used-by dates between February 3rd and February 21st. Fortunately, nobody
01:31reported any illness.
01:34Leafy greens are especially prone to listeria because they grow close to the ground, where
01:37they can easily pick up bacteria from contaminated soil or animal manure. It doesn't help that
01:42a lot of these greens are consumed raw, which eliminates the possibility of high temperatures
01:47killing off the bacteria. That's why it's always a good idea that you wash your veggies
01:51before eating or cooking, and why Dole ended up having to issue a nationwide recall for
01:55every product containing its iceberg lettuce in January 2022.
01:59"...Lettuce. Go."
02:01After equipment that had been used to harvest the lettuce tested positive for listeria monocytogenes,
02:06Dole was forced to pull anything made with lettuce at its production plants in Springfield,
02:10Ohio, and Soledad, California. This covered a multitude of products, including those sold
02:14under brand names such as Walmart's MarketSide, Aldi's, Little Salad Bar, Kroger, and President's
02:20Choice. It also expanded beyond the U.S., with multiple Canadian provinces, including
02:24Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan, affected by the recall as well. Luckily, no
02:29illnesses were reported, and no non-lettuce products were implicated in the recall. However,
02:34anyone who found one of the products in their homes was encouraged to not eat them.
02:38What made Dole's January 2022 lettuce recall all the more headline-worthy is the fact that
02:43it was the brand's second such recall in less than a month. In December 2021, Dole
02:48had already been forced to recall a whopping 180 varieties of salad sold under the Dole
02:52name, as well as Lidl, Kroger, MarketSide, Naturally Better, Nature's Promise, and Simply
02:58Nature. Again, this was all because of listeria. The brand announced that all Dole-branded
03:02and private label salads packaged at its plant in Bessemer City, North Carolina, and Yuma,
03:07Arizona, were at risk of contamination, with listeria monocytogenes having been identified
03:11in a garden salad and lettuce after random tests conducted by the states of Georgia
03:15and Michigan.
03:16"...bacteria."
03:18The bacteria in question was a genetic match for a strain that the FDA and CDC claimed
03:22was responsible for at least 16 illnesses since 2014. Of these victims, 12 were hospitalized,
03:29and two died.
03:30In addition to going through the usual motions of asking customers to check any salad they
03:33may have at home, Dole closed both facilities for full sanitization. However, some questioned
03:39why it took so long to take action if cases had been recorded for seven years. According
03:43to food safety attorney Bill Marler, there were likely ongoing low levels of bacteria
03:47in these facilities that weren't picked up in early investigations.
03:52On June 24, 2021, it was Dole's fruit, not its veggies, that spurred a recall. Cases
03:57of fresh Dole blueberries were recalled due to fears that they were contaminated with
04:00the parasite cyclospora. Once consumed via food or drink, cyclospora can infect the intestinal
04:06tract and cause cyclosporiasis, the symptoms of which include watery diarrhea, vomiting,
04:11stomach pain, and nausea.
04:13Don't throw up! Don't throw up!"
04:15These are typically treated with a round of antibiotics. However, like most foodborne
04:19illnesses, symptoms can be much more serious for those with weakened immune systems. While
04:23no berry-related illnesses were reported, Dole pulled six 18- and 24-ounce and pint-sized
04:28packages from stores in Illinois, Maine, New York, and Wisconsin, plus Alberta and British
04:33Columbia in Canada. Customers were told to check if their berries bore a best-of-use-by
04:38date between May 28 and June 9, 2021, and discard any that featured certain lock codes
04:43listed on the FDA website.
04:45It was unclear how the parasite found its way into the blueberries, but it's typically
04:48spread when produce is sprayed with contaminated water or handled by those who are already
04:52infected. The recall came during peak cyclospora season.
04:56Back in November 2020, tracking down romaine lettuce could be a real challenge. At the
05:00beginning of the month, another company, Tanimura & Antle Inc., had recalled 3,396 cartons of
05:06packaged romaine. The lettuce, which was contaminated with E. coli bacteria, was pulled from over
05:111,100 Walmart stores after 12 people fell ill and five were hospitalized.
05:16Just weeks later, a packet of Dole Organic Romaine Lettuce also tested positive for E.
05:20coli when the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development collected a random sample
05:25in a grocery store. Despite the fact that this wasn't linked to any reported illnesses
05:29or complaints, Dole pulled two varieties of romaine that were harvested on two specific
05:33dates, October 23 and October 26, 2020.
05:37Company spokespeople stressed that this was a different strain of E. coli than the one
05:40that triggered Tanimura & Antle's recall.
05:43A significant listeria outbreak in 2015 and 2016 was ultimately traced back to Dole packaged
05:49salads. All affected salads were produced at Dole's facility in Springfield, Ohio, which
05:53subsequently shut its doors for four months. This decision, combined with the recall itself,
05:58stole a reported $25.5 million. While the CDC began investigating the outbreak in September
06:042015, it only linked it to Dole products in January 2016.
06:08The outbreak affected multiple products, including those sold under the Dole name and other private
06:13labels, across 23 states and three Canadian provinces. By the time the outbreak was declared
06:18over in March 2016, 12 people had been hospitalized and one Michigan resident died after contracting
06:23listeria. The outbreak didn't work wonders for Dole's reputation.
06:27In the wake of the outbreak, the U.S. Justice Department launched a criminal investigation
06:31into the company. A government report claimed that Dole knew about the potentially dangerous
06:35bacteria in its Ohio facility over a year before the recall, and federal investigators
06:40found that it had failed to carry out the necessary tests to mitigate the risks of contamination.
06:44Oh, you know what? That's actually very good. There's a subtle hint of…
06:51They claimed that Dole didn't test the surfaces that came into contact with food, and instead
06:55conducted its testing in other spots around the plant, which would have reduced the risk
06:59of finding listeria. In 2017, Dole also settled two civil lawsuits in regard to the outbreak.
07:06The same processing plant in Springfield, Ohio, generated controversy long before Dole
07:10started recalling its salads in 2016. The facility was at the heart of a 2015 outbreak
07:15when routine safety testing by Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development identified
07:20salmonella in a single package of Dole's bagged spinach.
07:25"...salmonella."
07:27While this recall wasn't as big as the one in 2016, it still affected about 33,600 bags
07:33of spinach distributed across 13 states. Dole spokesperson William Goldfield told USA Today,
07:38"...the FDA told us about the test yesterday, and we immediately began recalling the product.
07:43I believe the FDA is going through the plant right now, and we expect to get back up and
07:47running soon."
07:48Fortunately, unlike the packaged salad outbreak a year later, no illnesses were reported.
07:52This is all the more lucky when you consider the fact that salmonella, a bacteria that
07:56is most commonly associated with chicken but can impact all kinds of food, kills an estimated
08:01420 people in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC.
08:06On April 14, 2012, a recall was issued by Dole after more random testing, this time
08:11courtesy of the state of New York, found salmonella bacteria in bags of Dole's 7 Lettuce Salad.
08:16The salad had already been distributed to stores across 15 states, sparking calls for
08:20customers to ditch 756 cases of lettuce. All of the products covered by the recall
08:25featured a use-by date of April 11, 2012. This meant that, at least theoretically, most
08:30of the salad would have already been consumed or thrown out by the time the recall notice
08:34circulated.
08:35While no illnesses were reported and no other products were affected by the recall, any
08:39customers who'd purchased Dole's 7 Lettuce Salad were encouraged to contact a healthcare
08:43provider if they developed any symptoms of salmonella.
08:47One of the biggest recalls to hit Dole came in the wake of a massive E. coli outbreak
08:51in 2006. Dole is the parent company of Natural Selection Foods, which produced the bagged
08:55spinach that caused the outbreak. Over 200 people were infected over the course of the
09:00outbreak. At least 103 people were hospitalized, and 31 developed a type of kidney failure
09:05known as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Three people died as a result of their infections.
09:09Having collected 13 bags of spinach from ill consumers, the FDA managed to establish that
09:14they were all processed on August 15, 2006. It used the production codes to trace the
09:19spinach back to a ranch in San Benito, California. There, the strain of E. coli was identified
09:24in water, and the feces of both cattle and wild pigs that were to be found in the area.
09:28The FDA found evidence of wild pigs around the areas used to grow spinach, but said it
09:32couldn't make a definitive call as to how exactly the spinach was contaminated.
09:36Well, we really don't know."
09:38Kevin Reilly, deputy director for prevention services at the California Department of Health
09:42Services, told SidRap in 2007,
09:44"...this is the first time we've found a clear link between an individual with a contaminated
09:48product and taken that link down to the farm level."
09:52According to the FDA, E. coli is primarily spread when the feces of infected persons
09:56or animals, some of whom may be asymptomatic, come into contact with food or water. With
10:01that in mind, it really is at least a bit horrifying how often E. coli outbreaks force
10:05big brands to pull products from grocery store shelves. In October 2005, E. coli made yet
10:10another appearance in Dole's recall history, this time in bags of three varieties of lettuce
10:14— Classic Romaine, American Blend, and Greener Selection — all of which bore a best-if-used-by
10:19date of September 23, 2005. By the time the FDA announced the recall, however, these products
10:25should theoretically have already run their course in-store.
10:27Still, the overarching fear for public health officials was, as always, that some people
10:32may have had the lettuce at home without realizing.
10:34"...how long has this been in here?"
10:36The Minnesota Department of Health first raised the alarm about illnesses linked to
10:40Dole lettuce purchased at the state's Rainbow Foods grocery store outlets. However, given
10:44that lettuce bearing the same production code was also distributed nationwide, the recall
10:49expanded. Dr. Robert Brackett, then the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
10:53Director, announced,
10:54"...given the severity of this illness, FDA believes an urgent warning to consumers is
10:58needed."
10:59Ultimately, the bacteria infected a total of 32 people in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
11:04Oregon, with multiple individuals requiring hospitalization.