Restaurants, Groceries Pull Tomatoes After Salmonella Warning

Major U.S. eateries, restaurant chains on Monday started removing fresh tomato slices from sandwiches and supermarkets have pulled selected stocks of fresh tomatoes off their shelves after the Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide alert that raw tomatoes may have infected several people with a rare form of salmonella.

Federal officials warned consumers over the weekend to avoid Roma, red plum and red round tomatoes as they may carry an uncommon type of Salmonella bacterium, SaintPaul.

Since late April, the Salmonella bacterium has sickened at least 145 people in the country, and the figure is rapidly growing. No death has been linked to the outbreak so far.

Although, the FDA’s alert applies on raw red plum, red Roma, or round red tomatoes, and not on Cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, smaller round tomatoes sold attached to the vine and homegrown tomatoes, many eateries and food points have stopped serving tomatoes altogether.

"We stopped serving them (tomatoes) about three days ago," said Luis Domenech, general manager of the McDonald's on Prospect Avenue in Hartford. "We'll start again when the FDA says it's OK."

"We have pulled tomatoes from all of our restaurants and do not plan to begin serving them again as long as there remains any concern about the tomato supply in this country," said Chris Arnold, a spokesman for Chipotle, the Denver-based burrito chain.

"We will keep fresh tomato salsa out of restaurants as long as there is a concern about the safety of the nation's tomato supply," said Chipotle Mexican Grill spokesman Chris Arnold.

"Hold the tomatoes. Tomatoes are temporarily unavailable due to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration Advisory," the K Street Burger King is greeting its customers with this sign taped on its menus.

Outback Steakhouse, Panera Bread, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Subway and Taco Bell were among other big chain restaurants that voluntarily stopped serving tomatoes to their customers.

Grocery stores, including Safeway, Giant Food, Harris Teeter and Wegmans, also removed tomatoes from their shelves. However, they pulled only those varieties which the FDA said were suspect. The stores continued to sell tomato varieties that are billed as safe by the health agency.

Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped Gram-negative enterobacteria that causes typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever and food-borne illnesses like bloody diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. The bacteria can enter the human system through contaminated water or food such as meat or poultry, and eggs with cracked shells, and can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, weak or aged people, and others with deteriorated immune systems. The illness can prove fatal for people in poor health or with weakened immune systems.

It can attack in as little time as 6 to 7 hours or take as long as 3 days, and the illness lasts four to seven days. Most people recover without treatment.

There are nearly 2,500 kinds of salmonella, which are found in a disparate variety of environments and which are associated with many different diseases. The type in the recent outbreak was salmonella SaintPaul, which is an uncommon bacterium. Salmonella outbreaks take place in tomatoes periodically. A 2004 outbreak that sickened more than 400 people was linked to tomatoes sold in Sheetz convenience stores.