A California avocado company is voluntarily recalling shipments that were sent to six states after officials said the fruit might be contaminated with a bacterium that can cause health risks.
The recalled California-grown avocados were packed at a facility in California and distributed in that state, Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin, the company, Henry Avocado Corporation, said in a statement on Saturday. It was not immediately clear how many avocados were affected, but the company said that all shipments from its packing facility were subject to the recall.
Henry Avocado, based in Escondido, Calif., north of San Diego, said it was issuing the voluntary recall “out of an abundance of caution” because a routine government inspection of its packing facility had turned up positive test results for the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes.
Listeria monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or older people and others with weakened immune systems, the company said. It can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women. Healthy individuals may suffer from short-term and less severe symptoms such as high fever, severe headache and nausea, the company said.
Still, in its statement on Saturday, the company said there had been no reported illnesses associated with the recall.
“We are voluntarily recalling our products and taking every action possible to ensure the safety of consumers who eat our avocados,” Phil Henry, the president of Henry Avocado, said in a statement. The company is “fully cooperating with federal and state health officials to facilitate an efficient and complete recall of these avocados,” he added.
The affected products are sold in bulk at retail stores, and the company said it was contacting buyers to ensure that the recalled avocados would be immediately removed from store shelves.
Specifically, the company said that both its California-grown conventional and organic avocados had been affected. Consumers can identify the conventional avocados by the “Bravocado” stickers on them, the company said. Henry Avocado’s organic products do not carry the “Bravocado” label on the sticker, the company said; those products are labeled “organic” and include “California” on the sticker.
In its statement, the company urged consumers who have bought the recalled avocados not to eat them and to either discard them or return them for a refund.
The company noted that avocados imported from Mexico and distributed by Henry Avocado were not subject to the recall and could still be consumed.
