A Gilroy company’s recall of Chinese fresh ginger contaminated with a toxic pesticide is the latest scare involving imported ginger and other food products from China.
No illnesses were reported as of Monday, a day after California officials first issued a public warning to advise consumers against eating fresh Chinese ginger.
State and federal health officials are now working to determine how the ginger got into this country and how widely it has been sold. It’s not the first time that contaminated Chinese ginger has been a problem.
U.S. port inspectors in Seattle have turned away shipments of Chinese ginger that contained pesticides in recent months, according to news reports. And Japanese authorities acknowledged this month that they mistakenly allowed 25 tons of Chinese ginger laced with pesticide into their country.
This time, California officials said they found potentially harmful levels of the pesticide aldicarb sulfoxide in a batch of fresh ginger from China that was distributed earlier this month by the Christopher Ranch food company of Gilroy. It was shipped to retailers and wholesalers in California, Michigan, Oregon, Louisiana and Washington.
The contamination was discovered in samples gathered randomly from an Albertsons grocery store in Roseville, near Sacramento. The samples were collected by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation, which routinely tests produce for pesticide residue.