Company Contact:
Libba Letton, Whole Foods Market media contact
libba.letton@wholefoods.com
Whole Foods Market
512-542-0878
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - AUSTIN, TX (November 24, 2010) - Whole Foods Market announces that one of its suppliers, Bravo Farms of Traver, California, has issued a voluntary recall due to evidence of Listeria and E. coli contamination at their plant. Bravo’s products at Whole Foods Market stores in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington are part of this recall since they were cut and packaged in clear plastic wrap and sold with a “Distributed by Whole Foods Market” sticker.
All of the following products are included in this recall:
Signage is posted in Whole Foods Market stores to notify customers of this recall.
No illnesses have been reported to date.
Consumers who have purchased any of the listed products from Whole Foods Market may return them to the store for a full refund.
Consumers with questions may contact Whole Foods Market at 512-542-0878.
E. coli O157:H7 causes diarrhea illness often with bloody stools. Although most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, some people can develop a form of kidney failure. Young children and the elderly are most susceptible to serious complications and even death. Listeria can cause listeriosis among at risk people, including pregnant women, newborns, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, and sometimes nausea or diarrhea. If infection spreads to the nervous system, symptoms such as headache and stiff neck can occur. Infected pregnant women may experience only a mild, flu like illness; however, infections during pregnancy can lead to more serious problems for the fetus. Consumers should seek immediate medical care if they develop these symptoms.
For the people, By the people. A statement that has become cliche and overused, mostly inappropriately. But when we look at such a statement a variety of emotions & ideas may come to mind. However, at the end of the day it screams American. What we take pride in here as a country is the ability to be democratic, work out our differences while all the while never getting along, all the while continuously striving to be self sufficient as a country, striving to be independent of any outside help or resources. Which we all know is a feat that will never happen, because the truth is no great society or country will truly be able to succeed or flourish without work through cooperation. ‘For the people by the people” ...Somewhere along the way we forgot what we were truly fighting for, what such passionate words meant, and somewhere along our struggle to become self sufficient as a country we became completely dependent...
However we didn’t become dependent on China, or Japan for our food as americans feared, we became dependent on ourselves. Which typically would be a good thing right? We became a country that produces 10 billion bushels of the worlds total 23 billion bushel crop, a country that produces over 50% of the ENTIRE worlds soybean crop, and exports 25% of the worlds wheat market. All in all we became a country that annually produces over 200 Billion dollars worth of produce & livestock. an absolutely AMAZING feet, when you take into consideration that as of October 2010 the U.S. accounted for less that 5 % of the worlds total population. Great right? Many countries became dependent on us for food & we became agriculturally dependent on ourselves. Which would be great, however...we are not “ourselves.” You see in us as the people wanting to become independent we became fully dependent on farmers & producers we don’t know, and by the time your food actually gets to you, you have no idea of what it truly is. The problem is their is no connection, no communication between grower & consumer. As a result, we have no idea of what we are ingesting, where its been, where its came from and we unfortunately become stripped of our nutrients and ingest empty shells of what our produce used to be.
As time passed by we didn’t notice, many didn’t care, and those who did care felt powerless, useless, and so little to these huge producers and stores that had so much money they could pay you to keep quiet if you even wanted to speak out. It was a dark period in our society. Until one day a group of people spoke out and decided to take a stand. They decided that they were no longer going to be raved outcast for refusing to eat this food and buy from their local farmers what they called Organic. They felt that everything was backward, what they were eating was right, there was nothing weird about them, everyone else had it wrong. So they started telling people, putting up little shops, writing articles, and supporting local farmers. A couple years passed and now Organic became what everyone wants to eat.
You see its time to give the nutrients back to the people, its time for the people to be in control like never before of what they decide to ingest into their bodies. No longer shall people be fooled into believing that what they are consuming is good for them when it is not, that they are getting their nutrients & eating healthy, when in reality they are now. It is time for us as a people to truly become Independent, but this time not independent of other countries, this time independent of “Ourselves”
