Now the feds may be coming for your salsa.
As the trail goes cold in the Food and Drug Administration's investigation of a nationwide outbreak of salmonella first thought to be linked to tomatoes, the agency has expanded its focus to include hot peppers, onions and cilantro.
As of Monday evening, the agency hadn't issued any official warnings to consumers or the food industry. But a variety of news reports indicate that FDA staff have been leaking information about possible produce crackdowns -- such as more rigorous inspections of salsa ingredients at the U.S.-Mexico border -- which could disrupt produce shipments.
While harvest is starting for California's hot peppers, some of the state's supply is imported from Mexico, a target of FDA scrutiny.
Sacramento-area grocers, produce distributors and farmers said Monday that they've received no notice of upcoming FDA actions.
Silverio Castaneda Jr., a supervisor at Castaneda Bros. farm near Fairfield, said a broad FDA warning about hot peppers could send consumers into a panic, depressing sales for all jalapenos, including his, which soon will be ready for harvest.
But a narrower recall, targeting peppers from a certain source, could turn out to be a boon.
"If people realize where they're coming from, it could help us. The market will tend to want the clean product," he said.
California-grown tomatoes were never implicated in the salmonella outbreak, and FDA officials have not suggested other California-grown salsa ingredients are suspects in their investigation.
As of this week, the basic ingredients for salsa can be found in large quantities on California farms, said Jim Boyce, general manager of Sacramento's Produce Express, which supplies fruits and vegetables to hundreds of local eateries.
Boyce buys tomatoes largely from local farms and cilantro from the San Luis Obispo region. Until this week, his hot peppers were grown in Mexico, but now the Southern California crop is ripe, and virtually all his peppers are purchased in-state.
Boyce's company dumped thousands of pounds of suspect tomatoes when the FDA issued its nationwide warning June 7. Sales have rebounded, though, he said, suggesting that restaurateurs and their customers are confident in the safety of Boyce's produce -- particularly when it's grown in the region.
"We're selling more local (tomatoes) than ever before," he said.
The salmonella outbreak has sickened 943 people in 40 states, including eight Californians, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illnesses have been concentrated in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Illinois. At least 140 people have been hospitalized.
Large as the outbreak is, it amounts to only a small fraction of the roughly 40,000 cases of salmonella poisoning reported each year in the United States. The actual number of infections could be well over 1 million annually, according to the CDC, because minor cases generally are not reported. To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2008 The Sacramento Bee, Calif.