The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration announced on November 16 a recall of Grimmway Farms organic carrots due to E. coli contamination that’s been linked to one death and 39 illnesses, as of Sunday.
Brands include Grimmway’s Bunny Luv, Cal-Organic and additional private label brands: Compliments, Full Circle, Good & Gather, GreenWise, Grimmway Farms, Marketside, Nature’s Promise, O-Organic, President’s Choice, Raley’s, Simple Truth, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Wegmans, Wholesome Pantry.
Grimmway, likely the country’s largest industrial-scale organic grower, with tens of thousands of acres of production, is certified by CCOF. The company, which also has an employee appointed by USDA Secretary Vilsack to sit on the National Organic Standards Board, has been tied to alleged improprieties regarding its certifier, e.g., Grimmway paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorships, contributions and advertising to CCOF over and above certification fees, a practice prohibited by law.
The Grimmway food contamination problem comes on the heels of another giant corporate agribusiness, Taylor Farms, also certified by CCOF, that was tied to deaths implicating contaminated onions used on McDonald’s hamburgers (the onions at McDonald’s were conventional rather than organic).
“This just illustrates the danger, like the historic spinach E. coli contamination some years ago also in California, in giant growers concentrating numerous brands through single packinghouses and distributing product nationally,” said Mark Kastel, executive director of OrganicEye, an industry watchdog. “Both because of scale and management control there are demonstrative advantages to buying produce from local and regional growers.”
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