US agribusiness giant Cargill has recalled a further batch of ground turkey products following a second salmonella scare.
Cargill has voluntarily recalled 185,000 pounds of ground turkey products made at its plant in Springdale in Arkansas due to possible contamination from salmonella heidelberg, detected by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Go deeper with GlobalData
Last month, Cargill recalled 36m pounds of products and suspended production of ground turkey at the plant after an investigation linked the site to an outbreak of salmonella heidelberg, affecting 107 people across 31 states. Of those, one person has been reported dead.
Cargill resumed production at the facility in mid-August after claiming it had tightened food safety measures.
However, Cargill said on Friday (9 September) that it has again suspended production of ground turkey at the site, as well as other turkey products there are not part of the recall.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are acting quickly in response to USDA’s sample testing,” said Steve Willardsen, president of Cargill’s turkey processing business.
“Although there are no known illnesses associated with this positive sample, it is the same salmonella heidelberg strain that resulted in our voluntary recall on 3 August. As a result of this latest USDA test result, we have suspended ground turkey production at our Arkansas facility until additional measures can be identified, approved by USDA, then implemented, which is similar to the process we previously employed when working with the agency.”
