You Might Want to Hold Off On Buying Frozen Broccoli

A frozen bag of veggies is one of the greatest purchases ever. Not only do frozen veggies contain just as much nutrients as fresh, they make cooking meals a heck of a lot easier. No washing, dicing, peeling, or grating—you can just microwave the bag or dump the goods into a pan.

Chances are, you probably have a ton of frozen veggies chilling (literally) in your freezer until you need them. But you might want to make sure you get rid of your frozen broccoli. That’s right—there’s another recall. First it was the romaine, and now it’s frozen broccoli. Someone is making it really hard to eat our veggies!

All joking aside (because this is truly no laughing matter), the recall is for the following: 16-ounce bags of private brand frozen broccoli cuts across the country—and the reason is due to a possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The sell-by date of these bags are March 15, 2020 and the UPC code is 68826700926.

These bags are sold at stores such as Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martin’s, which are located predominately on the East Coast, so if those are your go-to stores and you’re a big frozen veggie person, you better check your freezer.

But don’t throw them away—take them back to the store for a full refund! Stop & Shop, Giant Food Store, and other locations where the brand is sold is offering all your money back for the 16-ounce bags of their broccoli cuts.

The craziest thing about the recall happened due to the Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection, Food & Standards detection of listeria contamination when they conducted a random store sample test.

“We’re incredibly proud that our staff was able to catch this during a routine sampling,” Consumer Protection Commissioner Michelle H. Seagull said in a statement. “We work hard every day across all of our divisions to ensure public health and safety both by conducting regular inspections, and by responding to complaints.”

No illnesses have been reported as of late, and we really hope it stays that way! Listeria can be a very serious disease. Symptoms of listeriosis are pretty unpleasant, ranging from having a headache, to stiff neck, confusion, fever, and muscle aches.

About 1,600 people get listeriosis every year, with about 260 deaths, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Your doctor will be able to test for listeria with a quick lab test. And while it can be treated with antibiotics, this isn’t recommended for people such as pregnant women, newborns, the elderly, and others who may have weakened immune systems. Listeria can be even more serious for people in these groups.

While most employees have already taken the liberty of removing the affected products from shelves, be sure to pay attention to what brand of frozen broccoli you’re buying.

If you have any questions about the recall, you can call 1-800-767-7772 for customer support.

Do you shop at these stores that sell the frozen broccoli that’s been recalled? Do you have any sitting in your freezer? What do you think of all the vegetable recalls lately?