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The recall involves chicken products with the “Tip Top,” Perdue,” “Gordon,” “Sysco” and “West Creek” labels, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said.
The items were shipped to hotels, restaurants, and institutions nationwide, the FSIS said, adding that federal authorities were concerned that the products may still be in institutional freezers.
They urged that anyone who’s bought the products not serve them but, instead, either throw them away or return them for a refund.
Consumption of food contaminated with listeria monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, people with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women and their newborns.
Consumers outside those groups are rarely affected, the service said.
Listeriosis can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms.
In pregnant women, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn.
Some serious and sometimes fatal infections have occurred in older adults and people with weakened immune systems.
Those in the higher-risk categories who experience flu-like symptoms within two months after eating contaminated food should seek medical care, the government said. Listeriosis is treated with antibiotics.
Labels on the frozen, diced, and mechanically-separated, ready-to-eat chicken bears the display: “PACK DATE 01/21/19,” on the labels and “P-17453” inside the USDA mark of inspection or on the case, the agency reported.
The problem was discovered on Saturday, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) “notified FSIS that a sample of product produced by Tip Top Poultry, Inc. confirmed positive for the presence of listeria monocytogenes,” the service said.
Canadian public health and food safety partners, including the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, have been investigating an outbreak of listeria monocytogenes, the FSIS said.
A ready-to-eat diced chicken product collected as part of the investigation tested positive, the service said.
An investigation was continuing.
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