– NOTICE –
Nearly six months (that’s right, six months!) after Fresh Realm ready-to-heat meals were initially linked to a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak and initial recalls were issued, the illnesses continue and pasta as an ingredient from another supplier (Nate’s Fine Foods) is now contributing to a wave of ingredient recalls in a variety of pasta containing meals sold by retailers.
While this one seems ripe for more transparent investigative reporting, whether from public health officials or the media, so that we can all learn from it and prevent something like this from happening again, here are some aspects of Straight Talk that aren’t making the news.
- There continue to be additional illnesses and deaths CDC spike curve well after the investigation and initial recall in June 2025.
- This means that further illnesses, deaths and recalls could have been avoided if a proper investigation into the root causes had been conducted in June.
- Remember that simply recalling a food during an outbreak is not enough. We must insist that the public and private sectors conduct better root cause investigations to accurately identify what went wrong and prevent it from happening again.
- This investigation into the outbreak may have been complicated because it involved two federal agencies, the FDA and the USDA.
- As previously reported, the last FDA inspection on record for the pasta supplier occurred in May of this year, a month before the initial outbreak was reported, and it resulted in an NAI, meaning “no action indicated” because no objectionable conditions or practices were found. The report can be found here.
- How was the issue of repeated contamination of cooked pasta with Listeria monocytogenes overlooked during this inspection by regulators – as well as the company? The consequences of this failure are costly.
- And where is the outrage? Outrage over foodborne outbreaks appears to be selective, expressed by some but not others.
- Because of the initial failures, the involvement of multiple federal regulatory agencies, and the ongoing nature of preventable diseases, this one seems ripe for oversight, whether by the agencies themselves, the GAO, or Congress, so that we can all learn from it and improve.
- Another interesting aspect: most retailers require GFSI-based supplier audits every year. Although I haven’t seen any of the third-party audit reports, I suspect that they too — like the federal investigators — failed to identify risk and less-than-adequate preventive controls on the company’s part during their audits.
- But finally, let’s be clear, producing safe food is above all the responsibility of the producer. It is clear that the food producer, in this case Nate’s Fine Foods, either failed to identify Listeria as a foreseeable risk, over-indexed the product under the assumption that this product would be carefully warmed by consumers before consumption, and/or failed to implement adequate controls. It could be a combination of these factors, and more.
Bottom line. We CAN do better.
It is essential that we learn from these tragic incidents to ensure they never happen again.
Consumers deserve this from us.
About the author: Frank Yiannas is a food safety leader and executive, food system futurist, author, professor, former president of the International Food Protection Association, and consumer rights advocate. Most recently, he served under two different administrations as Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a position he held from 2018 to 2023, after spending 30 years in leadership positions at two industry giants: Walmart and the Walt Disney Company.
