Fresh Anaheim peppers pulled from Wegmans on Salmonella suspicion
Wegmans has removed fresh Anaheim peppers from its Produce departments due to the possibility of salmonella contamination. The FDA is currently investigating the situation.
If you still have Anaheim peppers, please throw them away. Do not return them to the store. You may go to the service desk for information on receiving a refund.
For more information, please call Wegmans Consumer Affairs at 1-800-934-6267, x-4760, Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm.
Woman finds sliced mouse in bag of frozen peppers
According to Metro (UK) Andrea Smith has been put off peppers for life after finding a field mouse while making dinner:
'My partner poured the peppers into a pan and was startled to find a clump of mouse fur and intestines falling out of the bag,' said the 37-year-old.
'After leaving it to defrost you could see the slice marks – it looked as if it had passed through a shredder with the peppers. The sight and thought of it made me feel sick. Mice carry all sorts of germs and there is no telling what my family could have caught.' 
Miss Smith, a mother of one, bought the bag from her local Morrisons supermarket in Gosport, Hampshire.
A manager was sent round to collect the corpse and carried out an investigation. Tests revealed it was a field mouse.
Bosses described the incident as a one-off and wrote a letter of apology to Miss Smith, in which they offered her a bottle of wine and vouchers to spend in store.
'I think the memory is going to stay with me for a long time,' said Miss Smith.
A Morrisons spokesman thanked her for 'bringing this to our attention'.
'We take the quality and the safety of all the products that we sell very seriously indeed,' the spokesman added.
'We would like to reassure her and our customers that this is an isolated incident.'
Facing a recall without superhero senses leaves some vulnerable to confusion
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Generally, my careful avoidance of them is a fairly unique practice. At least, I thought so until I met Bret. We stand together in our quest for vegetables that don't leak acid on the rest of the salad.
We were on our honeymoon when the outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul in tomatoes and/or hot peppers hit the news. Many people joined our stance on tomatoes then... but it took me a while to realize it.
Since I wasn’t reading FSnet while we were gone, I had to hear the warnings put out on eating tomatoes like a regular consumer would. It was like my superhero senses were turned off.
At the time, I wasn’t in the habit of watching the news. And according to the results of a Rutgers Food Policy Institute (FPI) survey,
“The majority of respondents (66 percent) first heard about the advisory on television.”
Throughout our trip, we ate at cafes, buffets, and casual dining establishments. When we didn’t eat out, we stopped at Wal-Mart for cereal and sandwich supplies. None of those places showed signs of produce being recalled.
The survey found,
“A small minority (8 percent) first heard about it from restaurants and retailers.”
As it happened, some of the first news I received came from my step-dad’s mom, who understood the problem to be in tomatoes sold with the vine still attached.
Hearing through the tomato-vine was problematic, though. I later learned the CDC advised,
“…persons with increased risk of severe infections…should not eat raw Roma or red round tomatoes other than those sold attached to the vine or grown at home…”
Those two words, “other than”, were missed (or misunderstood) at some point in the chain of communication that ended with me.
Lead author of the Rutgers FPI report, Dr. Cara Cuite said in a press release,
“Our results suggest that consumers may have a hard time taking in many details about these types of food-borne problems.”
Almost half (48 percent) of people surveyed indicated they were not sure which types of tomatoes were under suspicion.
I was back at superhero headquarters (i.e. in front of my Mac) when Salmonella Saintpaul was found in a sample of jalapenos from Mexico, and again when the outbreak strain was isolated from a Mexican serrano pepper and the water used to irrigate it.
Most consumers weren't so lucky. From the survey,
“The researchers found that while almost all respondents (93 percent) were aware that tomatoes were believed to [be] the source of the illness, only 68 percent were aware…that peppers were also associated with the outbreak.”
Dr. Cara Cuite commented in the press release,
“This research is especially timely in light of the growing number of recalls as a result of the Salmonella outbreak associated with peanut butter and peanut paste.”
How can consumers be better informed? One practice seen in both outbreaks that helped alleviate some confusion was the use of club membership or “loyalty card” information to contact customers who had recently bought recalled products.
What else can be done to clear things up? After all, regular consumers don’t have superhero senses.
