Potentially contaminated processing equipment and problems with packing and storage of whole cantaloupes at a Colorado farm likely led to the deadliest listeria outbreak in the United States in 25 years, which has so far claimed 25 lives in a dozen states, federal health regulators said Wednesday.
Pools of water on the floor of the Jensen Farms packing facility in Granada, Colo., equipment that was not easily cleaned and sanitized and failure to cool newly harvested cantaloupes before sending them to cold storage all contributed to the outbreak, the first-ever listeria contamination blamed on whole melons, federal Food and Drug Administration officials said Wednesday.
“We are quite confident and certain,” that those factors led to the outbreak blamed so far for 123 illnesses in 26 states, said Sherri McGarry, senior advisor to the FDA’s CORE Network in the Office of Foods, who spoke at a Wednesday press conference.