The Utah Department of Agriculture has started advising local grocery chains and food distributors to start pulling certain kinds of tomatoes because of a nationwide Salmonella outbreak.
The Food and Drug Administration(FDA) says to be safe, stay away from eating certain raw tomatoes including red Roma, red plum or red round tomatoes.
The Utah Department of Agriculture is now putting out the warning as well. Several restaurant chains are pulling the produce. McDonald’s, Chipotle’s Mexican Grill and Taco Bell have stopped serving sliced tomatoes.
We’ve been in contact with a number of non-chain local restaurants. Some hadn’t heard anything about Salmonella tomato problem. Others where still deciding what to do.
Kroger officials made the voluntary decision over the weekend to pull certain tomatoes from the shelves in Utah. They removed the Roma tomatoes and the large round tomatoes. They stress that those that are left on the shelves in Utah have NOT been implicated in the outbreak.
According to the Utah Department of Health, the following types of tomatoes listed below are NOT likely to be the source of this outbreak.
- cherry tomatoes
- grape tomatoes
- tomatoes sold with the vine still attached
- tomatoes grown at home