Salmonella Outbreak Linked To Unpasteurized Tempeh Sickens 60

The number of people sickened by a rare strain of salmonella linked to unpasteurized tempeh has risen to 60, Food Safety News reports.

The tempeh, a fermented soy bean product that comes in several flavors, was made by a small local producer, Smiling Hara, in Asheville, N.C. The outbreak strain is Salmonella Paratyphyi B, which can cause severe symptoms. Seven people have been hospitalized so far.

Steps have been taken to limit the public's exposure to the product, which includes soy, black bean and black-eyed pea tempeh:

Smiling Hara temporarily halted production and recalled all its tempeh made between January 11 and April 11 with best-by dates of July 11 through October 25.

According to The Asheville Citizen-Times, investigators now believe that an ingredient used to make the tempeh, which Smiling Hara bought from a Maryland distributor, may be to blame. More than 30 stores and restaurants in and around Asheville carried various Smiling Hara tempeh product.

Investigators also say cross-contamination is likely contributing to the outbreak. Buncombe County's health director Gibbie Harris tells the Citizen-Times that some recently sickened people were possibly exposed at the same time to the bacteria at parties or similar gatherings.

With the new reports of sickenings, the total number of affected parties has rised by 30 percent over the last weekend. Surges in diagnoses, Harris said, are typical in outbreaks: "It is going to take a bit of time before this tapers off."

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Comments

[Lia Dufresne Lias]

10:07 PM on 05/09/2012

or the company simply do not how to produce a good quality ones

[Lia Dufresne Lias]

10:04 PM on 05/09/2012

been eating tempeh all my life. never had a food poisoning because it. This is a scam maybe the poisoning was caused by something else.

[halfpricefaustian]

12:27 PM on 05/09/2012

Black-eyed pea tempeh! Now there's an idea. I'll have to try making some instead of the usual yellow soybean tempeh. Black-eyes should cook faster, too.

[mbouvier]

09:40 PM on 05/08/2012

Food Safety News has the number of those sickened wrong. See Food Poisoning Bulletin.

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

09:05 PM on 05/08/2012

If this was ConAgra or a "Big Ag" company the pitchfork and torches would be out. But because it's a small, organic company, it's okay to make people ill?

[Oginikwe]

11:11 PM on 05/08/2012

It's a matter of scale. And, no one said it was okay. What an idiotic post.

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

09:50 PM on 05/09/2012

Not all all. And if you scaled this up to a large company, it would be what, 10s of thousands. I can't understand why small companies and their customers think they are exempt from bacterial contamination and food safety. And I guarantee, next time there's an outbreak at a large food company and it's mentioned here it won't have 7 comments.

[bernieboom]

05:25 PM on 05/08/2012

Fukushima radiation is everywhere...land, sea & air, irradiating everything on this planet.

[Scott Howes]

04:44 PM on 05/08/2012

The Solution is to have Training in Food Safety this is a never ending job but with out clean work place this is what we get sick people. I can help in training to have a safe Food Training www.isoclasses.com video online training

[awareness101]

05:10 PM on 05/08/2012

food safety