Salmonella Found in Nestle Chocolate Morsels
Almost a year after Nestle Toll House cookie dough was linked to a multi-state outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, the company has found Salmonella contamination in a sample of chocolate morsels made at its plant in Burlington, Wisconsin.
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Nestle spokeswoman Laurie MacDonald told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper that the positive test in chips occurred several weeks ago at the plant. She says there is no recall or Salmonella outbreak associated with the finding, which prompted a cleaning of the plant and many additional tests that produced negative results.
Cyndi Armstrong, public health nurse for the Western Racine County Health Department, said Nestle informed her department of the positive test on Thursday morning.
In 2009, Nestle's recall of Toll House cookie dough became one of the biggest food safety stories of the year. E. coli O157:H7 -- usually found in raw beef -- had not previously been associated with refrigerated dough.
Nearly 70 people across the country were sickened in the outbreak before it was brought under control. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 25 people were hospitalized and seven developed HUS E coli, or hemolytic uremic syndrome, the leading cause of E. coli deaths.
The E. coli problem in cookie dough reappeared last month at Nestle's plant in Danville, Virginia, but it was caught before a recall was necessary. At the time, Nestle said it was switching to heat-treated flour in hopes to control the bacteria. National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen is representing victims from the 2009 outbreak.
