The seed supplier FDA has declined to name in the alfalfa sprout outbreak that has sickened 55 people in 15 states is International Sprout Holdings, Inc., which does business as International Specialty Supply in Cookeville, Tennessee. My friend Phyllis Entis, the FoodBugLady, found it today in FDA’s weekly Enforcement Report and published it on eFoodAlert: a recall of 43,799 pounds of alfalfa seed from a single lot, ISS Lot # SAL2-24JB, sold in 50-pound bags, which the company began on August 23 by emailing its customers.

That is roughly 876 bags of seed, shipped to wholesale customers in California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, plus Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Tahiti and Venezuela. None of those customers is named.

Credit where it is due.

Enforcement Reports are where recalls go when nobody sends out a press release, and it takes someone who actually reads them to find one. Phyllis does. She is a retired food safety microbiologist with degrees from McGill and the University of Toronto, the author of TAINTED: From Farm Gate to Dinner Plate, Fifty Years of Food Safety Failures, and she was writing eFoodAlert before Food Safety News existed. As of this afternoon I could not find the supplier’s name anywhere else. FDA’s outbreak advisory, last updated August 31, still calls it “a common seed supplier,” and CDC’s investigation page has not posted an update since August 24.

The name matters because the seed is the story. I wrote on August 20 that four organisms in one product is a seed signal, not a kitchen signal. FDA’s August 31 update moved the investigation from one sprouter to one seed lot. Today we know whose lot.

What two federal records say, eight days apart.

The Enforcement Report puts the start of the seed recall at August 23, one day after Everything Sprouts recalled its Calco and Everything Sprouts alfalfa. FDA’s August 31 advisory says the supplier told its customers not to use, grow, sell, transfer or redistribute the lot, and to return or dispose of any remaining seed. The same update says the supplier had not responded to FDA’s recall recommendation, had not sent a recall notice to downstream customers, and had not told the customers who received the lot to recall anything they grew from it.

Both can be true. Pulling seed still sitting in a warehouse is one thing. Recalling sprouts already grown from that seed and already sold is another, and that second step is what FDA asked for. On August 31 I wrote that “has not responded” is not the same as “refused,” and the Enforcement Report bears that out: the company acted on the seed itself within a day of the Everything Sprouts recall. What the public record still does not show is a recall of sprouts grown from lot SAL2-24JB by anyone other than Everything Sprouts. FDA says at least one other grower sprouted it. That grower has not been named, and no second sprout recall has been announced.

Where the seed went, and where people got sick.

Setting the seed list next to CDC’s illness map is worth doing, with care. Five states appear on both: Florida, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Minnesota is Everything Sprouts. Florida and New York each have two reported illnesses, and Pennsylvania and South Carolina one each. Whether those six people ate sprouts grown near home from this lot, or ate Everything Sprouts product while in the upper Midwest, is something FDA’s traceback can answer and the public record cannot.

Eleven states received the seed and have reported no illnesses: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Wisconsin, with 17 cases, is not on the seed list at all, which fits a Minneapolis grower shipping sprouts across the state line. Two caveats travel with that comparison. The seed went to wholesale consignees, who may have resold it elsewhere, and CDC’s states are where sick people live, not where they ate. CDC also says the true number of sick people is likely much higher and may not be limited to the states with known illnesses.

The Produce Safety Rule covers the sprouter, not the seed.

When FDA finalized its guidance on seed for sprouting in 2022, it counted 52 sprout outbreaks and more than 2,700 illnesses between 1996 and 2020, and said seed has historically been the likely source in many of them. In the same notice FDA said seed for sprouting is food but is not covered produce under the Produce Safety Rule, so growing, conditioning and distributing it are not subject to that rule’s requirements. The guidance is a recommendation. The sprout-specific requirements apply to the grower, and FDA sent Everything Sprouts a warning letter under that rule in March 2025. What FDA has written specifically for the seed supplier, the company that sells to sprouters in 16 states and four countries, is guidance.

Three questions for International Sprout Holdings and FDA.

Who is the second grower, where did it sell sprouts grown from lot SAL2-24JB, and has it recalled them?

The company says on its own website that it grows and tests all of its seed in-house. What did the testing of lot SAL2-24JB show before it shipped?

A local business listing says the company also sells fresh sprouts to distributors, grocery stores and restaurants. Were any of them grown from this lot?

What to do.

The recalled Everything Sprouts products, Calco and Everything Sprouts alfalfa plus the Crunchy Protein, Zesty Garlic and Robust Radish mixes, are listed with lot numbers on FDA’s advisory. Sprouts grown from this seed lot by anyone else carry no recall notice, so there is nothing on the package to check. If you ate sprouts this summer and got sick with diarrhea, especially bloody diarrhea, see a doctor and ask for a stool test. Keep any packaging or receipt, and ask the lab or health department to preserve your isolate, because genetic sequencing is what ties one person’s illness to an outbreak.

Phyllis closed her post with the FoodBugLady’s standing advice: “DO NOT EAT RAW SPROUTS!” I have been saying the same thing for years. Thank you, Phyllis.