Sprouts served on Jimmy John’s sandwiches supplied by a farm called Tiny Greens sickened 140 people with Salmonella, primarily in Indiana in late 2010. In Jan. 2011, Jimmy John’s owner Jimmy John Liautaud said his restaurants would replace alfalfa sprouts, effective immediately, with allegedly easier-to-clean clover sprouts. This was one week after a separate outbreak of Salmonella sickened eight people in the U.S. Northwest who had eaten at a Jimmy John’s that used clover sprouts.

Those frequent recalls and concerns about the safety of sprouts have prompted Jason’s Deli to drop them from its menu nationwide for the remainder of 2012.

“We’ve lost confidence in sprouts,” Daniel Helfman, Jason’s Deli director of public relations, told Mike Hornick of The Packer. “We’re all about food safety and the health and wellness of our customers. Bottom line, when you look at what’s occurred with sprouts just in the last year or so, the recalls and warnings, it’s enough that we feel we have to walk away for all of 2012 and maybe 2013. The sprout industry is trying to restore confidence, but that’s just going to take time. I can’t imagine other restaurants aren’t looking at this.”

Representatives of the International Sprout Growers Association were not immediately available for comment.

The change, already in place in some markets, will take full effect sometime in April. Beaumont, Texas-based Jason’s Deli has more than 230 restaurants in 28 states.

But be careful: Jason’s Deli is replacing sprouts with organic spinach and field greens.

A table of sprout-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks.