Can stepped-up sampling procedures fix lettuce’s trust problem?
A wave of more than 50 foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy greens produced in the United States has sickened more than 1,400 people since 2014. As a result, lettuce has a trust problem: Canada tightened safety requirements for imports last fall—a shot across the bow one expert called “a little radical.” Now, the Food and Drug Administration has announced it will start collecting samples of lettuce grown in California’s Salinas Valley throughout the growing season and test them for E. coli and salmonella, The Packer reports. It remains to be seen whether the 500 planned tests will be enough to stop the next outbreak before it happens.
