A number of supermarket chains have been forced to recall thousands of bags of own-brand frozen vegetables because of fears that they could contain a deadly bacteria.
The Food Standards Agency said 43 frozen products, including sweetcorn and mixed vegetables – sold by retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl – had been recalled by Greenyard, one of the largest suppliers of fruit and vegetables.
It is feared the frozen vegetables could contain listeria monocytogenes, which can cause listeriosis, a rare illness responsible for the death of two people in the UK last year.
Since 2015, there have been 47 reported cases, nine of which were fatal. Outbreaks have also affected Austria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
Last week the Hungarian food safety authorities banned the sale of frozen vegetables produced by a Greenyard plant in Hungary over the past two years. It also ordered retailers to withdraw the products from their shelves and alert customers in an effort to contain the outbreak. All freezing activity at the plant has been stopped.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said it had detected strains of listeria in products manufactured at the processing plant as far back as 2015. This suggests strains of the bug have persisted in the factory despite cleaning and disinfection procedures being carried out.
Initially the source of the bacteria was thought to be sweetcorn, but EFSA said it was possible that other vegetables were also contaminated.
Greenyard said: “We take this very seriously. We stopped our production in Hungary for an in-depth review and will not restart before the root cause is found and eliminated.”
