N.J. Salmonella Cases Are Traced to Tainted Snack

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON Tests have confirmed that a strain of salmonella found in Veggie Booty snack food was responsible for an outbreak of the disease last spring that sickened 61 people, including two in New Jersey, the Food and Drug Administration said.

The agency’s findings supported earlier testing by the Minnesota Agricultural Lab, the FDA said in a statement Friday.

Veggie Booty is marketed by Robert’s American Gourmet Inc. of Sea Cliff, on Long Island. The company says seasoning, believed to have been made with Chinese ingredients, contained the salmonella. The company says it bought the seasoning from Atlantic Quality Spice & Seasonings of Edison.

The FDA advised consumers not to eat any Veggie Booty or Super Veggie Tings Crunchy Corn Sticks because of concerns of contamination. Robert’s American Gourmet ordered a recall on June 28.

People in 19 states, nearly all of them children 3 and younger, became sick after eating the tainted snacks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

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