A Gallatin Valley woman is suing Costco and Taylor Fresh Foods, a company that supplies Costco with the celery used to make a chicken salad that was found to be contaminated with E. coli.
It was reported that the woman purchased chicken salad from Costco in Bozeman, and shortly after that, had symptoms like bloody diarrhea and severe stomach cramps. The woman’s lawyers have stated these symptoms are commonly linked with an E. coli infection. “This case is also about making sure that this doesn’t happen again,” said Ryan Osterholm, the woman’s attorney. “Unfortunately, it probably will, but we have to do a better job of making sure the food supply is safe.”
Montana State University food and nutrition specialist, Lynn Paul said that the E. coli is a tricky bacteria to follow. “These type of bacteria and viruses are always mutating and changing, so it’s hard to keep up with the types of bacteria and what their latest strain is,” Paul said. She said you cannot see or smell E. coli; scientists in the lab have to use high-tech equipment to detect the bacteria. Depending on the person, it might not take that much E. coli to get a person sick.”One person could only need 10 cells of E. coli. That’s astounding, because that is such a small amount in comparison to other outbreaks in the past,” said Paul.
Costco was left a number of messages to which it did not respond. According to a statement by Taylor Fresh Foods, a company official said the concern over the celery provided to Costco appears to have been a “false alarm.”
The lawsuit was issued on Monday in the Butte division of U.S. District Court by Minneapolis law firm Pritzker Olsen and its associates at Bozeman law firm Beck & Amsden. Costco has pointed out its vendoe, Taylor Farms of California, to be the potential source of the E. coli outbreak since it supplied the onion and celery mix in the salad. Tests by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have found E. coli on vegetables used in the salad.
In October, there was an e-coli outbreak in several states sickening 19 people The FDA had pointed out and determined the most probable cause was Costco chicken salad, which had been ingested by a great deal of people reporting sickness. Costco responded promptly to terminate the selling of the product and communicated with all those people who had purchased the product to advise them not to consume it. Costco acted immediately to address the problem and has a robust food quality system.
On October 18, 2015, Plaintiff purchased a Costco Rotisserie Chicken Salad from the Costco Wholesale store in Bozeman, Montana, according to the Complaint filed in the case. The lawsuit alleges the salad purchased by Plaintiff was manufactured by Costco using a celery product distributed by Taylor Farms. On November 2, 2015, Plaintiff developed symptoms of an E. coli infection, including bloody diarrhea, according to the complaint. She sought medical treatment. Testing determined she had an E. coli O157:H7 infection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments were first notified to a cluster of related E. coli O157:H7 infections in November of 2015.
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