SEATTLE, Wash. — A Seattle nurse who says she became seriously ill after eating broccoli sprouts linked to a multistate Salmonella outbreak is suing the Idaho company that grew them, as new polling shows Americans’ confidence in the safety of the nation’s food supply has dropped.
The lawsuit against Evergreen Fresh Sprouts comes amid an outbreak that has sickened at least 32 people in six states, including 24 in Washington. Three people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Seattle-area law firm representing Anna Mondau says she ate a sandwich made with Evergreen broccoli sprouts at a Seattle restaurant during Labor Day weekend. According to the firm, Mondau, a registered nurse who works in a pediatric cardiac intensive care unit, began experiencing abdominal cramping, nausea, diarrhea, fever, and chills three days later.
A stool sample later tested positive for Salmonella, and Public Health – Seattle & King County told her that whole-genome sequencing matched her infection to the outbreak strain.
The lawsuit accuses Evergreen Fresh Sprouts of negligence.
Evergreen recalled 215 cases of broccoli sprouts on Sept. 10 because of the potential for Salmonella contamination. According to the recall announcement posted by the Food and Drug Administration, the sprouts had been sent to three distributors in Washington and could have been sold to consumers in Idaho, Montana, and Washington.
The affected products had use-by dates ranging from Sept. 7 through Sept. 16.
According to the company’s recall notice, Evergreen stopped producing and distributing broccoli sprouts on Sept. 4 and began a root-cause investigation.
KIRO 7 attempted to reach Evergreen Fresh Sprouts at two publicly listed phone numbers Tuesday, but both numbers were disconnected.
Investigators trace outbreak to broccoli sprouts and seed
The outbreak has continued to widen since the recall was first announced.
Food safety attorney Bill Marler, whose firm is representing Mondau, told KIRO 7 that sprouts present particular food-safety challenges.
“Sprouts are a raw agricultural product, so not only do you have to spend time understanding where you’re sourcing the seeds from because they’re grown outside, but also you have to be very careful about how you’re sprouting it and to test for pathogens,” he said.
This is not the first outbreak linked to Evergreen Fresh Sprouts.
The company was linked to a 2011 Salmonella outbreak and a 2014 E. coli outbreak.
Marler is also separately preparing a citizen petition asking the FDA to require warning labels on packaged raw and lightly cooked sprouts, as well as additional warnings for sprouts sold unpackaged and seeds intended for home sprouting.
Americans are increasingly worried about their food
The outbreak comes at a time when Americans appear increasingly wary of what’s on their plates.
A Gallup poll released Oct. 8 found 65% of Americans are very or somewhat confident that food sold at most grocery stores is safe to eat. That’s the lowest level Gallup has recorded and down from 81% in 2019.
Confidence in the federal government’s ability to ensure food safety has also fallen to a record low.
Gallup found 47% of adults have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the federal government to keep the U.S. food supply safe, compared with 68% in 2019.
But a flurry of recall headlines does not necessarily mean the country’s food supply has become less safe, Teresa Murray, Consumer Watchdog Director with U.S. Public Interest Research Group, told KIRO 7.
“Even if we had more recalls in public announcements this year than last, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that our food is less safe,” Murray said. “Are they doing a better job of enforcing, or was our food unsafe the whole time and we just didn’t know it?”
Murray told KIRO 7 that the number of publicly announced recalls this year is tracking roughly in line with last year and said recall totals alone are an imperfect measure of food safety.
She said the number of people getting sick from contaminated food can provide another important way to examine the problem.
“What we do believe is very much driving the news this year is the fact that there have been so many high-profile food recalls this year,” Murray said.
That includes a massive cyclospora outbreak this summer. Gallup noted that its latest polling followed what it described as the largest recorded cyclospora outbreak in U.S. history, which sickened more than 12,000 people across 21 states.
Where does contamination happen?
Murray said fresh fruits and vegetables are frequently involved in outbreaks that produce large numbers of illnesses and that contamination can occur while food is being grown. However, she stressed that responsibility for stopping contaminated products does not rest with a single part of the food system.
“There is plenty of responsibility to go around here,” Murray said. “It really lies with everybody along the food chain.”
That includes growers and producers testing products, distributors and retailers safely handling food, government regulators conducting testing and inspections, and consumers practicing safe food handling at home, she said.
Federal food-safety workforce has shrunk
The debate over food safety is also unfolding against significant changes within the federal agencies responsible for overseeing the nation’s food supply.
CBS News reported in July that the FDA had lost about 20% of its staff during President Trump’s second term. The CDC was down 25%, CBS reported.
“We do know that funding for food safety has been cut this year,” Murray told KIRO 7. “I don’t think that those funding cuts have helped food safety. To what extent they’ve hurt, we don’t know.”
KIRO 7 contacted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for comment but did not receive a response. In September, a spokesperson told CBS News that “the FDA continues to have the staff required for outbreak investigations, and no FDA investigators were affected by staffing changes or reductions in force.”
Food-tracing safeguards delayed
Murray also pointed to the federal Food Traceability Rule, which is intended to make it easier to trace certain foods through the supply chain during an outbreak.
Enforcement of the rule has been delayed until July 2028. Under the rule, businesses handling certain foods would have to maintain more detailed supply-chain records that could help investigators trace contaminated products during an outbreak.
Murray argues that faster traceability could help authorities identify where contaminated food came from and alert businesses using those products as ingredients.
“Why wouldn’t we want to find out more quickly when our food is contaminated?” Murray said.
What consumers can do?
For consumers worried about recalls, Murray’s advice is not to panic but to focus on risks they can control.
She recommends shopping at retailers consumers trust to notify them if something they’ve purchased has been recalled and practicing safe food handling at home.
That includes washing hands during food preparation, keeping different foods separated, and washing utensils between ingredients to reduce the chance of cross-contamination.
For this outbreak, the CDC says the recalled broccoli sprouts should not be eaten and should be thrown away or returned. Wash items and surfaces that may have touched the sprouts with hot, soapy water or clean them in a dishwasher.
According to the FDA, the recalled Evergreen sprouts are past their expiration dates and are no longer available for sale.
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