Students eating at Northwestern dining halls may have noticed that cantaloupes are, at least for now, off the menu.
The removal comes in response to news that cantaloupes from a melon farm in southern Colorado were responsible for a multi-state breakout of a serious infection called listeriosis. Jensen Farms, the distributor of these cantaloupes, has announced a nationwide recall of the affected fruit. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, as of Oct. 12, 2011, 116 cases were linked to the outbreak, and 23 people in the United States have died from ingesting affected cantaloupes.
Though only one of these outbreak cases was tied to Cook County, the Sodexo Group, which manages nuCuisine at both the Evanston and Chicago campuses, is not taking chances.
“None of our produce vendors were sourcing cantaloupe from that area,” said Pamela Yee, Sodexo’s district marketing manager for NU. “There were a couple of students that sent in feedback forms asking about the cantaloupe, and based on this concern, we decided to pull the cantaloupe from our locations.”
Pulling certain produce from dining hall menus is not an uncommon occurrence, Yee said. Currently, organic grape tomatoes are also unavailable at dining halls due to a separate recall.
“Sodexo sends out email blasts to tell us when products are recalled,” Yee said. “We have a produce distributor, and we can see where their stuff is coming from. A lot of times in the dining halls we’ll label the produce if it’s local, like if it’s from Wisconsin or Michigan.”
Some students say they feel reassured by nuCuisine’s cautionary reaction to the cantaloupe recall.
“It’s nice to hear about the cantaloupe being taken off the shelves and know that they have our safety in mind,” Weinberg freshman Christina Zhang said.
Other students, however, are not as concerned. Weinberg senior Kerianne Fullin said she preferred to focus her worries on other matters.
“It’s probably easier to get sick through ways other than the dining hall food,” she said.
Despite the recall, some parents expressed confidence in the food safety standards of NU’s dining halls.
“I read about it but I wasn’t too worried,” said Rita Kotowski, a preschool teacher whose son is a freshman at NU. “It’s good to know about cantaloupe being taken off the menu, but I’m pretty sure the school wouldn’t stupidly serve bad food in the dining halls.”
Yee stressed nuCuisine takes food safety very seriously, pointing out that it staffs a certified food safety manager and is audited by an outside agency.
“We definitely take lots of precautions,” Yee said.
Although there is no definite timeline for a cantaloupe restock, Yee said cantaloupes will reappear in dining halls once enough time has elapsed for people to feel safe eating them again.
“We just want people to feel comfortable eating at our dining halls,” she said.
