A precautionary recall of Organic Marketside Spring Mix Salad was ordered by Fresh Express after two people in Florida found a dead bat in one of the packages, sold only at Walmart stores in the Southeastern region of the United States.
The recall was necessitated when Fresh Express was notified that extraneous animal matter was allegedly found in a single container of the salad. Out of an abundance of caution, all salads manufactured in the same production run are being recalled, the company said in a press release.
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The bat was sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rabies lab in Atlanta, for laboratory testing because bats in the United States sometimes have been found to have this disease. The deteriorated condition of the bat did not allow for CDC to definitively rule out whether this bat had rabies.
The Fresh Express item subject to the recall is 5 oz. Organic Marketside Spring Mix marketed in a clear container with production code G089B19 and best-if-used-by date of APR 14, 2017 located on the front label, and UPC code 6 8113132897 5 located on the bottom of the container.
The recalled Fresh Express salads were distributed in eight states
The Organic Marketside Spring Mix Salad was sold at Walmart stores in the Southeastern region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
Walmart acted quickly to remove the product from store shelves and no other Marketside salads are included in the recall.
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Possible Listeria Contamination
The CDC informed that transmission of rabies by eating a rabid animal is extremely uncommon, and the virus does not survive very long outside of the infected animal.
Their experts are supporting Florida local and state health officials in evaluating the people who found the bat in the salad.
The risk of rabies transmission is considered to be very low, but because it isn’t zero, the two people who ate salad from the Fresh Express package that allegedly contained the bat were recommended to begin post-exposure rabies treatment.
Both people report being in good health and neither has any signs of rabies, said the CDC in a press release.
Consumers who may have already purchased the recalled product should discard and not consume it. A full refund is available where purchased or by calling the Fresh Express Consumer Response Center toll-free at (800) 242-5472 during the hours of 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern Time.