The only nut butter I really like is peanut butter

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Foodborne pathogens seem to like lots of nut butters. This week’s pathogen in nut butter news comes to us from Thrive Market and surprise, it’s Listeria, not Salmonella.

According to Thrive Market, all unexpired lots of their nut butters after a supplier identified some Lm in the products. I guess the expired ones are okay? Expiration dates are really for quality anyway – and we don’t really have expiration dates, but whatever.

Thrive Market, Inc, is recalling all unexpired lots of the Thrive Market-branded nut butters listed below (“Product(s)”) due to the potential for contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. On January 21, 2019, one of our suppliers notified us that it was issuing a recall of all nut butters it has manufactured since January 2018 because of a positive test for Listeria monocytogenes in recent lots. Because the safety of our members is our absolute priority, we are expanding on our supplier’s recall and are voluntarily recalling all unexpired lots of all Thrive Market-branded nut butters manufactured by this supplier.

The public health impact of the contamination isn’t really clear to me – how much Lm? Are nut butters protective in the gut to Lm like they are to Salmonella? Not sure. That’s a  question for another day.

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About Ben Chapman

Dr. Ben Chapman is a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. As a teenager, a Saturday afternoon viewing of the classic cable movie, Outbreak, sparked his interest in pathogens and public health. With the goal of less foodborne illness, his group designs, implements, and evaluates food safety strategies, messages, and media from farm-to-fork. Through reality-based research, Chapman investigates behaviors and creates interventions aimed at amateur and professional food handlers, managers, and organizational decision-makers; the gate keepers of safe food. Ben co-hosts a biweekly podcast called Food Safety Talk and tries to further engage folks online through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and, maybe not surprisingly, Pinterest. Follow on Twitter @benjaminchapman.