One of the most vital steps in preventing food borne illness is to have victims report their illnesses to the local health department. By doing so, they assist the local health department to identify outbreaks and trace the origin of the food poisoning to its source. One of the problems with food poisoning is that too many people take it for granted that it is a temporary illness that will pass on its own. Usually it does, which is a good thing for the six million victims who acquire food poisoning in the U.S. each year. But when people do seek medical attention and are tested (a stool culture is done) this enables the authorities to know there is a pathogen on the loose and begin the process of reining in the outbreak.
Good neighbors get tested – or at least report their illnesses to the county health department.
A Story of One Customer Who Went Even Further: A Concerned customer took it upon herself to identify listeria in organic butter and may have saved numerous others from illness!
Another organic butter product has been recalled for potential contamination, but this time the discovery was made by a consumer. Oskri Organics is recalling its Sunflower Butter and Tahini Butter products, after a customer sent a sample in for testing and it returned a positive result for listeria monocytogenes.
Oskri Organics Corporation, based in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, is now recalling Oskri Organic Sunflower Butter Lot #099, Oskri Tahini Butter LOT #193, and Thrive Sunflower Butter LOT #233. Organic Sunflower Butter was distributed to retail stores in Ohio. Tahini Butter was distributed to retail stores and via online sales to California, Arizona, Georgia, Connecticut, Indiana, Texas, Florida, Idaho, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. Thrive Sunflower Butter was distributed in Indiana via online sales.
Consumers can identify the 16-ounce jars of potentially contaminated organic butter products by their UPC numbers, their coloring, and their expiration date:
- Oskri Organic Sunflower Butter Lot #099 UPC 666016401295– greenish khaki color jar with expiration date of 10-2019
- Thrive Sunflower Butter LOT # 233 UPC 671635704825 – greenish khaki color jar with expiration date of 2-2020
- Oskri Tahini Butter LOT # 193 UPC 666016401301 – light tan color jar with expiration date of 1-2020
If you have purchased any of these organic butter products for yourself or your family, do not eat them. Listeria monocytogenes is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy individuals may suffer short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
After being notified by the customer of the positive listeria monocytogenes finding, Oskri Organics Corporation initiated their recall and began working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine the cause of the contamination. Oskri has also ceased production of the organic butter products until the investigation is complete.
