The Food and Drug Administration?s warning of a salmonellosis outbreak linked to certain tomatoes reminds T.J. Rahll of the FDA?s 2006 warning of an E. coli outbreak associated with bagged fresh spinach.
At the time, spinach shipping was disrupted for about three months, frustrating produce distributors, Rahll said.
“When these things happen, people freak out, and they?ll really cut back,” said Rahll, office manager for Edward G. Rahll & Sons, one of 19 produce suppliers at the Maryland FoodCenter Authority in Jessup.
Rahll & Sons and other area suppliers receive most of their tomatoes from Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. So far, the FDA determined tomatoes grown and harvested in Georgia and South Carolina have not been associated with the outbreak.
Rahll said he was confident Florida tomatoes would soon be cleared by the FDA, because most of the salmonella cases have been reported in Midwestern and Western states, where few Florida tomatoes are shipped.
The FDA on Tuesday said Maryland-grown tomatoes are not associated with the outbreak, Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Roger Richardson said in a statement. Maryland grew 120,000 pounds of tomatoes worth $6 million in
2006.
The FDA?s warning comes at a particularly bad time for produce companies like Rahll & Sons.
“It really affects business,” Rahll said. “This is a big time of the year for tomatoes, it being the summertime with barbecues.”
Rahll estimated the company “could probably be stuck with $20,000 to $40,000 worth of tomatoes, not to mention what you could lose over the summer,” because of the FDA warning and decisions by grocers and restaurants to pull tomatoes from their shelves and menus.Rahll & Sons totals about $25 million in sales annually.
National grocers and restaurants like Giant Food, SuperFresh, McDonald?s and Chipotle have pulled tomatoes since the warning, likely for precautionary reasons, Rahll said.
At Cross Street Market in Baltimore, market manager Casper Genco said tomatoes were for sale because he was confident they were shipped from areas that weren?t associated with the outbreak.
“None of the affected fruits were supplied to the Maryland area,” Genco said.
