Texas Company Voluntarily Recalls Possibly Tainted Sandwiches

August 10, 2007

A Longview company has voluntarily recalled more than 4,200 Cloud’s tuna salad and egg salad sandwiches – some of them distributed in Arkansas – because of the possibility they could be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

That type of contamination can cause listeriosis, which is uncommon but potentially fatal.

“We’ve had no reports of anybody getting sick from these sandwiches and most were probably consumed during July,” David Floyd, president of Cloud Food Services, said in a story in the Aug. 8 online editions of the Longview News-Journal. “However, they were distributed to a large number of convenience stores in the area and we want to put the safety of our customers first.”

The 4,219 sandwiches were sold in convenience stores in East Texas, west Louisiana and southwest Arkansas. The tuna salad sandwiches carry the date code 62607-72507. The egg salad sandwiches carry the date code 41907-72507.

The potential problem was discovered during sampling by the Food and Drug Administration.

Listeriosis can cause high fever, severe headache, neck stiffness and nausea. It can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths, as well as serious and sometimes fatal infections to infants, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems.

“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what could have caused these sandwiches to become contaminated,” Floyd said. “This organism is present in many different places in the environment. We maintain the strictest standards of sanitation at our facility and will continue to do so.”

Customers who have sandwiches covered by the recall should return them to the store where they were purchased for a full return, according to a release on the FDA Web site.

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