Rochelle Company Recalls Salad Greens In Salmonella Scare

I feel badly for companies when something in their production process goes awry and they're forced to issue a recall. It's even worse when it's a local company.

That local company is BrightFarms, located in Rochelle, and the recall is because their salad greens, sold in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana, have potentially been contaminated with Salmonella.

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We've seen plenty of Salmonella contamination recalls over the years, and I have no doubt that we'll see plenty more. But when you ask around a little (as I did around the office here this morning), you'll find that many of us have little to no idea what it means to be infected with it.

FDA.gov:

Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

As someone who's gone through a Salmonella infection when I was in my early teens, I can tell you from first-hand experience that it's nothing you want to screw around with. I picked it up through contact with tainted water, not from a food product. It took several weeks before I started to feel human again.

You might want to have a look at your current stocks of produce, as this product was sold extensively in the Rockford area. Here's what you're looking for, according to a statement from BrightFarms and the FDA:

The recall includes the below salad products packaged in clear, plastic clamshells with “best by” dates through 7/29/2021: