A number of products at the Target and Trader Joe’s in the USC Village were removed from shelves after an October 9 recall due to possible listeria contamination.
Yoceline Diaz, a Southern California resident who is training to be an integrative health coach, said she travels farther from home to shop at Trader Joe’s in the Village as opposed to other stores because she trusts Trader Joe’s food quality. She said the news of the recall was “a little disheartening.”
“This is one of the places where I trust that everything is a little cleaner,” Diaz said. “There’s a lot of things around where I could go [to shop] but it’s just the quality of the food there is not the best, so we come here as a trusted source. But apparently, we can’t really trust everything.”
Diaz also said she is worried about the potential health implications some people who do not research their food may face.
“If you do not have an interest in nourishment and how to actually take care of yourself through food, then you’re kind of just there taking what’s provided and this can be a problem,” she said.
Most of the products in the recall are from BrucePac, a pre-packaged protein food provider that produces millions of pounds of meat and poultry per week. The outbreak was discovered during a routine government inspection according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Some of the affected products were already distributed to grocery stores, restaurants and schools across the country.
At the Village Trader Joe’s, the products affected by the recall are the harvest salad with grilled chicken, field fresh chopped salad with grilled white chicken, chicken chow mein, salad with BBQ flavored chicken, chicken enchiladas verde, Waldorf salad with grilled white chicken meat and green goddess salad with blackened chicken thigh meat. At the Village Target, Good & Gather pre-packaged salads and some other products have been pulled from the shelves as well.
The USDA released a comprehensive 343-page product recall list which noted that other food suppliers utilized by some USC students such as Kroger and 7-Eleven are affected, too.
The illness is most dangerous for people with weakened immune systems, those older than 65 and pregnant women. It can be fatal to newborns and fetuses, according to the Center for Disease Control.
Some community members who shop for groceries in the USC Village are unaware of this recall.
Shuning Xin, a master’s student studying communication data science, said she will think twice about buying meat products from Trader Joe’s in the future after learning about the recall.
“I have heard there’s been several food recalls in the [past],” she said. “So, that kind of makes me worried about if their pre-packaged food has some quality issues.”
People who have purchased products included in the recall list with expiration dates in the affected period are urged to discard the products or return them for a full refund, according to signs in the Village Trader Joe’s that will be posted on cash registers until November 11.
The Village Target did not have any signs posted about the current product recalls as of Thursday afternoon, only a permanently posted sign next to the exit instructing people looking for information on recalls to visit the gift registry kiosk or the retail giant’s website.
Symptoms of listeriosis, which include fever, fatigue and muscle aches, usually start within two weeks of consuming a contaminated product. People who have eaten something recalled due to potential listeria contamination do not need to contact a healthcare provider unless they experience symptoms of listeriosis, according to the CDC.
Rene Habenicht, a marketing coordinator who lives in Los Angeles, said Trader Joe’s is “basically [his] go-to store.” To him, the recall is a shock.
“I get all my meats from there so yeah, it’s kind of a big deal,” Habenicht said.