A Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut and almond butters made by nSpired Natural Foods Inc. was the tenth-largest food poisoning outbreak of 2014. The outbreak sickened six people in five states, one person was hospitalized.
The products were sold under the brand names Arrowhead Mills and MaraNatha at a number of grocery stores including Arrowhead Mills, MaraNathha, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, Safeway and Kroger.
Health officials used pulsed field gel electrophoresis and whole genome sequencing tests to identify the outbreak strain, Salmonella Braenderup, in case patients and in environmental samples collected from inspections at nSpired Natural Foods in January and July 2014. nSpired Foods issued a recall for the products.
Cases were reported in the following states: Connecticut (1), Iowa (1), New Mexico (1), Tennessee (1), and Texas (2). Onset of illness dates ranged from January 20, 2014, to May 16, 2014. The case patients ranged in age from 2 to 83, with a median age of 35 years. Sixty-six percent of those sickened were female.
Symptoms of Salmonella poisoning usually develop within 12 to 72 hours of exposure and include diarrhea, fever, vomiting, abdominal cramping, nausea, chills and headache. For some people, the diarrhea can be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. These patients are at risk for having the infection spread from their intestines to the blood stream which can be fatal without prompt antibiotic treatment. Children are at special risk.
