LAKE COUNTY — All but one of the county”s nine supermarkets have pulled all organically grown spinach and packaged salads containing fresh spinach off their shelves in response to a national E. coli outbreak traced to the vegetable in its raw form.
Since last Thursday, when E. coli was first detected and organically grown spinach was identified as its source, more than 100 cases of illness from E. coli have been reported across the country.
One person, a 77-year-old woman, has died from E. coli poisoning and authorities are investigating whether the death of a second person, a 23-year-old woman in Ohio, may have been caused by contaminated spinach.
At last count, 19 states had reported cases of E. coli, topped by 29 cases in Wisconsin.
Locally, managers and produce managers at Bruno”s, Ray”s, Sentry and Hardester”s supermarkets said that as a precaution all fresh spinach products and products containing fresh spinach had been taken off their shelves.
Jennifer Webber, director of public affairs for Safeway, said that all 532 Safeway markets in Northern California, in-cluding stores in Lakeport and Clearlake, and Von”s markets in the southern part of the state, had discontinued selling fresh spinach products “until we get further information.”
Only Foods Etc. in Clearlake did not remove its spinach products, manager Effrain Santana said, because it buys from Atlanta, a produce company not in the loop of suspicion.
“Everything went,” said Tom Oranje, produce manager for Ray”s Market in Clearlake. “I would say we lost $1,200.”
Most of the markets are refunding money to shoppers who return spinach products, and are reimbursed by some of the produce companies they purchased them from, but not all.
Said Hardester”s Hidden Valley produce manager Adam Evans, “It”s a full recall on everything. Any food that comes in that has spinach” on it we will take back. I don”t know the total expense of what we”ve lost doing that, but there was an expense.”
Evans, who says that every bag of fresh salad Hardester”s sells is inscribed with “spinach not included,” adds, “A consumer scare is what it”s turning into.”
The scare is heightened by the fact that no one has yet determined the source of the E. coli. Until it is, virtually all organically grown spinach is suspect and has vanished in all but one of the county”s stores.
“We have pulled all bagged spinach, all salad mixes that contain spinach, all bulk spinach and every fresh bunch of spinach from our shelves,” says Webber. “We have yet to determine what the source is and until we know the outcome of this investigation it”s going to be difficult to gauge.”
Carlos Fagundes, Bruno”s manager, and Gordon Fenner, the produce manager at Sentry, also say they”ve pulled all spinach products, “even though they haven”t narrowed it down to what products and where it (E. coli) is coming from,” says Fagundes.
County Health Department Director Dr. Craig McMillan called it “a very sad state of affairs for a very healthful product,” but added, “I don”t think they have any choice. They still haven”t found a source for contaminating spinach.”
McMillan said the Health Department has ruled that frozen and canned spinach are safe, but “is not recommending cooking raw spinach because at the present time they have nothing they can trace.”
So, there”s no choice but to take spinach off the shelves?
“Apparently not,” McMillan responded. “Not until there”s a way of separating out the contaminated spinach.”
As a preventative measure, McMillan suggested county residents inventory what”s in their refrigerators, and if anything in there contains fresh spinach get rid of it.
California agriculture is taking a very big hit on the E. coli scare, because 74 percent of the fresh spinach sold worldwide is grown here.
Chuck March, executive director of the Lake County Farm Bureau, says there will be bigger ramifications because all growers are indirectly affected.
“It”s an extremely serious issue to agriculture,” said March. “If you talk to the pear growers, they are aware of what something like this can do to their industry. The main responsibility for agriculture is to provide safe products, and, of course, agriculture takes that responsibility very seriously.
“So, when something like this happens, it causes everyone to reevaluate their operations.”
March is sympathetic to the spinach growers, who, along with lettuce growers, have been blamed for causing 15 similar outbreaks in the last half-century, according to a CNN report.
“The industry has been under scrutiny and is aware that it has had problems in the past,” he said. “I think everything that could possibly be done they”re doing.”
Contact John Lindblom at jlwordsmith@mchsi.com.
