Your Favorite Grocery Store Might Have Recalled its Frozen Fruit

Mallory Arnold
·2 min read
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This article originally appeared on Outside

There's Listeria hysteria over contaminated frozen fruit recalled from Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Walmart, and Aldi's. On June 21, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the official recall notice for frozen fruit products from SunOpta's Inc.'s subsidiary, Sunrise Growers Inc.

Listeria monocytogenes is a bacteria found in soil and groundwater contaminated by decaying animals, vegetation, or feces. Consuming contaminated food can cause listeriosis, which annually poisons an estimated 1,600 people in the U.S., killing 260. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, and fever. But for children, people 65 and older, and pregnant women, listeria is even more serious.

Expecting mothers are 10 times more likely to get listeriosis, which can cause stillbirths, miscarriages, and preterm labor. For this reason, pregnant women generally stay clear from uncooked foods, the most common source of listeria. This includes deli meats, raw sushi, and yes, pre-cut fruit.

Listeria is also deadly to older adults. More than half of all Listeria infections in 2020 occurred in people aged 65 or older.

You can, however, easily kill listeria if you cook food to its minimal internal temperature. This is why frozen fruit is particularly bad to be contaminated with Listeria, because it's rare that you cook with it. No documented illnesses due to this recall have been reported at this time.

Below is the full list of recalled fruit categorized by store:

Whole Foods: 365 Organic Tropical Fruit Medley, 365 Pineapple Chunks, 365 Organic Pineapple Chunks, 365 Organic Whole Strawberries, 365 Organic Sliced Strawberries and Bananas, 365 Organic Blackberries.

Walmart: Great Value Mixed Fruit, Great Value Mango Chunks, Great Value Dark Sweet Cherries.

Trader Joe's: Trader Joe's Organic Tropical Fruit Blend.

ALDI: Season's Choice Tropical Blend.

Target: Good & Gather Organic Cherries and Berries Fruit blend, Good & Gather Dark Sweet Whole Pitted Cherries, Good & Gather Mango Strawberry Blend, Good & Gather Blueberries, and Good & Gather Triple Berry Blend.

This is the second time this month frozen fruit has been recalled from popular retailers. June 15, Wawona Frozen Foods recalled its Organic DayBreak Blend (sold at Costco) because of a potential contamination of Hepatitis A. In 2022, a similar outbreak occurred in fresh organic strawberries imported from Mexico and resulted in 13 hospitalizations.

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