ALERT: Huge Recall After Dead Bat Found In Packaged Salads

It’s bat time.

No, seriously, it is.

Two people in Florida reportedly discovered a dead bat in a prepackaged salad, prompting a recall and an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The customers had already eaten some of the bag of Fresh Express’ Organic Marketside Spring Mix before discovering the creature in a “deteriorated condition,” the CDC said in a press release on Saturday. Their health is being monitored while the CDC tests the carcass for rabies. Even if the animal tests positive, the risk of transmission would be extremely low, the center notes.

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The Marketside Spring Mix is one of the most popular bagged salad mixes on the market.

“It’s one of our best-selling salad mixes, above fresh produce,” on manager in Southeastern Texas confesses.

“CDC recommends that anyone who ate the recalled salad product and found animal material in it contact their health department for evaluation,” the center said in its release. “People who have eaten the recalled salad product and did not find animal material are not at risk and do not need to contact their health department.”

The bat was sent to the CDC rabies lab for laboratory testing because bats in the United States sometimes have been found to have this disease. The deteriorated condition of the bat did not allow for CDC to definitively rule out whether this bat had rabies.

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Fresh Express announced a limited recall of its Organic Marketside Spring Mix product on Saturday. It has a production code of G089B19 and a best-if-used-by date of April 14. The salads in question were sold in Walmart stores in the southeastern U.S. Walmart acted swiftly to remove the product from its shelves, the company said.

Fresh Express is a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands, L.L.C. The company’s website says it produces nearly…

… 40 million pounds of salad each month and “over 20 million servings of our salads are consumed every week.” It also claims that in “1989, we were the first to successfully package and nationally distribute a fresh-cut, ready-to-eat salad.”

“Fresh Express takes matters of food safety very seriously and rigorously complies with all food safety regulations including the proscribed Good Agricultural Practices,” the company said in a news release.