Do restaurants buy the same spinach that is available at the grocery store?
Restaurants and grocery stores often buy spinach from the same major food distributors in the U.S. Therefore, the spinach that you purchase from a grocery store may have been processed by the same company as the spinach that you eat in a restaurant. CDC and FDA are working to ensure that the restaurant industry is fully aware of the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak related to spinach and are taking the appropriate measures to prevent exposure of their customers to E. coli O157:H7. Restaurants should not purchase spinach implicated in the current E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. If you cannot verify that a brand of spinach was not processed by Natural Selection Foods, and it has a “use by date” of October 1, 2006 or earlier, you should not buy or eat the fresh spinach. For more information on restaurant guidelines, contact your local health department.
