The Tip Top Poultry Listeria recall, issued on September 28, 2019, has been updated to alert consumers that the ready-to-eat chicken products were used in more products, that is, secondary recalls. Some of these products may have been served from the deli country in retail stores.
A list of the retailers that may have sold these products has been released, and pictures of product labels have also been released. These lists will be updated “as more information becomes available,” according to the USDA.
Some of the retailers that may have sold some of these products in certain states include Food Lion in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland,West Virginia, Delaware, Tennessee, and Georgia; IGA is South Carolina and Georgia, BI-LO in New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia, Kroger in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, and Piggly Wiggy in South Carolina and Georgia, among others. Please look carefully at the list. If you purchased any foods made with cooked diced chicken from those stores in those states, then check the secondary recall list.
The FDA has not updated the recall list, and these products don’t appear on the FDA recall web site, but some of the recalled brands and products the USDA has listed include Private Selection Chicken Gyro Triangles, Great Value Butter Chicken Spring Rolls, Backpacker’s Pantry Chicken Lasagna, Sysco Chicken Salad, Comfort Cuisine Cape Cod Chicken Salad, Sycamore Farms White Meat Chicken Salad, Park Street Deli Cranberry Almond Chicken, among others. Look at the product photos to see if you have purchased any.
If you did buy any of these specific Tip Top Listeria products, do not eat them, even if you plan to heat or cook them before serving. Throw them away or take them back to the place of purchase for a full refund. Clean out your refrigerator or freezer with a mild bleach solution, and wash your hands well after handling these products.
There is a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak that is ongoing in the United States, but no government agency has linked those illnesses with any of these products. However, a listeriosis outbreak in Canada has been linked to Rosemount precooked chicken products. The U.S. outbreak is mentioned in the Canadian outbreak notice. The type of Listeria identified in sick patients living in the U.S. is closely related genetically to the Listeria bacteria making people sick in Canada.
Symptoms of listeriosis can take up to 70 days to manifest. Those symptoms include a severe headache, high fever, neck stiffness, muscle aches, nausea, and diarrhea. Pregnant women can suffer miscarriage and stillbirth if they contract this infection, even though they may only seem like they have the flu. If you do feel sick with these symptoms, see your doctor.
