Dole Fresh Vegetables is voluntarily recalling all salad bearing the label "Dole Hearts Delight" sold in the U.S. and Canada with a "best if used by (BIUB)" date of September 19, 2007, and a production code of "A24924A" or "A24924B" stamped on the package.  The "best if use by (BIUB)" code date can be located in the upper right hand corner of the front of the bag.  The salad was sold in plastic bags of 227 grams in Canada and one-half pound in the U.S., with UPC code 071430-01038.

To date, Dole has received no reports that anyone has become sick from eating these products.  The recall is occurring because a sample in a grocery store in Canada was found through random screening to contain E. coli O157:H7.  No other Dole salad products are involved.

This product was sold in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada and in Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and neighboring states in the U.S.  Consumers can call the Dole Consumer Center toll-free at 800-356-3111. Consumers are reminded that products should not be consumed after the "best if used by" date.

Rene Cardinal, national manager of the fresh fruit and vegetable program at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told the Ottawa Citizen,

Don’t play Russian roulette. If you have it in your home, destroy it," and that not all bags are necessarily contaminated, "but don’t take any chances."

Marty Ordman, a Dole spokesman, told the Associated Press that the romaine, green leaf and butter lettuce hearts that went into the blend were grown in California, Colorado and Ohio, then processed at Dole’s plant in Springfield, Ohio on Sept. 6.

California Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Food-borne Illness called on the Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, to provide his office with details on the latest recall of leafy greens grown in the United States, and to inform the committee immediately whether or not the lettuce in question was grown in California and, if so, whether or not the grower was a signatory to the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement proposed by industry as a self-regulatory approach to food safety.