Dive Brief:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has closed its investigation of CRF Frozen Foods. The company recalled more than 350 frozen products under 42 brands earlier this year due to reports of listeria contamination linked to CRF's Pasco, WA facility.
- The CDC warns that people could continue to become ill if they don't know about the recalls and consume these frozen products weeks, months or even years in the future. The outbreak has already sickened at least nine people from four states, all of whom were hospitalized. Three died, though state health officials named listeria as cause of death for only one of them.
- An external public relations consultant speaking on behalf of CRF told Food Safety News that the company would take its time reopening the Pasco plant. He said CRF's ingredient sourcing is seasonal, centering around crop harvests, which means opening in a few weeks versus a few months would make little difference as the summer comes to a close.
Dive Insight:
Last month, CRF announced that it hadn't been able to identify the source of the listeria contamination and was shifting its focus to securing federal approvals needed to resume production at the Pasco facility. With the CDC's investigation now also closed, it seems the contamination source will remain a mystery.
This could be an issue for CRF and the brands CRF produces frozen food products for. Without being able to identify the problem, it's more difficult to ensure consumers and regulators that a solution is in place to prevent the contamination from recurring. A company spokesman told Food Safety News that CRF executives were taking their time with the plant's new design, including state-of-the-art equipment and processes.
However, even if CRF has solved the contamination problem through the overhaul of its plant systems, this issue could hang over the heads of CRF and the 42 brands involved in the recall by nature of the products themselves: They're frozen.
Packaged foods that are refrigerated or even shelf stable may end up expiring before consumers ever use them, but frozen foods can last much longer. Consumers may forget about a recall -- if they knew about it in the first place -- not realizing their freezer contains recalled products, and may eat them later.
That means CRF and any of these 42 brands could find themselves in the spotlight again in the coming years, even after CRF has done what it needed to do to resume production at the Pasco plant. If that time comes, CRF and the manufacturers and retailers that own those brands may have to do damage control to communicate to consumers that the products are now safe to consume, even though people are still getting sick.