Listeria Death: Chicken Sold at Binghamton Area Grocery Stores Part of Massive Recall
Vacation season is here and this busy mama thought she would get ahead of the game by buying, prepping, and freezing the meals my family will consume on our vacation and that I would do it all a month before we hit the road. Unfortunately for me, getting a jump on things early means I'm going to have to backtrack thanks to a pretty serious USDA-issued food recall.
My family will be traveling the New England coast and to help save money, we opted to stay in the cheapest hotels we could find which means that we'll basically be at the mercy of dorm room-sized microwaves and mini-refrigerators for a week. Sure, we'll go out to eat once or twice, but for the most part, we plan to stick to "cooking" in our hotel rooms.
Pre-cooked chicken is easy to freeze, thaw, and then eat when on the road so it seemed like the perfect meal solution. Except the cooked chicken I bought is part of a massive recall. This recall kind of got lost in the chaos of the holiday weekend, but it definitely warrants attention. Tyson Foods Inc. recalled over 8 million pounds of its ready-to-eat chicken because it may be contaminated with listeria.
Produced between December 26 of 2020 and April 13 of 2021, 8,492,832 pounds of frozen, fully cooked chicken were shipped around the country to grocery stores, hospitals, restaurants, restaurants, and more.
The USDA received word that some people had become sick with listeriosis and after an investigation, they traced the culprit back to pre-cooked chicken produced by Tyson. According to the USDA, "The epidemiologic investigation identified three listeriosis illnesses, including one death, between April 6, 2021, and June 5, 2021."
If you're like me and you buy food and then freeze it, you may have some of the recalled chicken in your freezer. To see what chicken products are part of the Tyson recall, take a look at this.