Outbreaks of foodborne diseases from fresh and fresh-cut produce con- tinue to occur in the United States; historically, fresh and fresh-cut produce cause more illnesses and higher numbers of foodborne dis- eases than any other food commodity. In a 2015 analysis and report of data collected between 2004 and 2013 from the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s Foodborne Outbreak Database, the number of
confirmed foodborne disease outbreaks (source identified) related to fresh and
fresh-cut produce was higher than for any other single food category, including beef, poultry and seafood.1 Only multi-ingredient, nonmeat foods registered
higher, probably
because they
were combinations of produce
commodities not
confined to a
single ingredient
in the outbreak
investigations.
This same analysis showed that
not only was
fresh produce the
most common
cause of outbreaks, but also when an outbreak occurred due to fresh produce, the
adulterated fresh-produce commodity also caused the largest number of illnesses
in each outbreak among all the food categories (Figure 11).
Of course, these data don’t truly reflect the actual number of outbreaks due to
fresh produce commodities nor the number of illnesses and deaths that occurred
in each outbreak, as the number of reported outbreaks generally represents only a
fraction of the actual number of outbreaks in any given year. 2
Figure 1. Outbreaks and Illnesses Due to Food, 2004–20131
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
N
um
ber
of
Ill
n
ess
es
N
um
ber
of
O
ut
bre
aks
Multi-Ingredient(Nonmeat) Produce Seafood PoultryandPoultryDishes BeefandBeefDishes Multi-Ingredient(Meat)Dairy PorkandPorkDishes BreadsandBakery Luncheon/DeliMeats Eggs
Illnesses (n = 84,536)
