Eleven people have been infected, nine of them hospitalized, and one of them was a baby who died. That is the tally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has traced a listeria outbreak to ready-to-eat meat and poultry sold by Yu Shang Food of Spartanburg, S.C.
The cases surfaced in California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York between July 31 and Oct. 24. California supplied the grimmest part of the file. Two infant twins and their pregnant mother fell ill there. Both twins died, yet the CDC counted only one death, since the bacteria was not detected in the other child.
The agency is blunt about the limits of its own figures. “The true number of sick people in this outbreak is also likely higher than the number reported. This is because some people recover without medical care and are not tested for Listeria,” it said.
Where the trail leads
Patient interviews continue. So far, seven people said they bought food in person or online from markets that sell Yu Shang products, and two said they ate the brand’s chicken. The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA had already found listeria in one of the company’s products during routine tests the month before.
A first recall came on Nov. 9 and covered about 4,500 pounds. On Thursday the company went much further, recalling more than 72,000 pounds of meat and poultry. Pork belly, duck, beef shank, chicken feet and chicken gizzards are on the list. Their “used by” dates fall between Aug. 21 and 27, 2025.
The CDC’s advice is plain. Throw the recalled food away or take it back to the shop, then clean anything it touched. Listeria is a particular danger to pregnant women, people over 65 and those with weakened immune systems. Fever, chills, muscle aches, nausea, diarrhea, a stiff neck, loss of balance and convulsions are the symptoms to watch for, and Mayo Clinic says they can appear within days or take up to a month.
A year of recalls
This is not the first alarm of the autumn. Producer BrucePac recalled more than 11 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry the month before over possible listeria. The summer’s Boar’s Head deli meat outbreak, which killed 10 people across 19 states, was declared over by the CDC on the very day the Yu Shang recall widened.
Abby Snyder, a professor of microbial food safety at Cornell University, offered Harvest Public Media a measured reading. Surveillance has improved, she said, “that’s why we’re able to recognize even relatively small outbreaks now.” As for the run of recalls: “We’re just in a period where several seem to have happened in a relatively short succession in the past few months.”
