According to reports from the Monterey County Herald, the Dole Recalled lettuce was from Salinas Valley.
Two of the three lettuces in a Dole bagged salad mix recalled this week were grown in the Salinas Valley.
Dole Fresh Vegetables president Eric Schwartz confirmed that the romaine and green leaf lettuce in its Hearts Delight salad mix was produced locally and mixed with butter lettuce from Ohio and romaine from growers in Colorado.
The lettuces were processed at Dole’s plant in Springfield, Ohio, on Sept. 6, said Schwartz. Eighty-eight cases — or 528 bags — were distributed in Canada and 755 cases containing 4,530 bags in the U.S.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Dole Food Co, the parent company of Dole Fresh Vegetables, issued a voluntary recall Monday, one day after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued its own advisory in Canada.
No illnesses have been reported, according to Garfield Balsom, a spokesman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Food Recall and Emergency Response.
Schwartz said the company, which is based in Monterey, has turned over paperwork detailing field audits, field and harvest data and shipping information to FDA investigators and its own independent consultants and is cooperating with the agency.
The voluntary recall affects all packages of Dole’s Hearts Delight salad mix sold in the United States and Canada with a “best if used by” date of Sept. 19, 2007, and a production code of “A24924A” or “A24924B,” Dole said.
The product was sold in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada
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and in Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee starting around Sept. 8, said Marty Ordman, a Dole spokesman.Schwartz declined to identify the fields where the lettuce was grown, citing the ongoing FDA investigation.