Listeria outbreak in Ready to Eat 'Muscle Fuel' meals

  • 31/07/2017
Cabbage listeria
Cabbage has been blamed for the Listeria outbreak. Photo credit: Wikipedia

Food company Ready to Eat has announced a Listeria outbreak in several of their pre-packaged meals.

Ready to Eat, which produces 'Muscle Fuel' pre-made meals, said the meals affected are the 'Vegetarian Chickpea and Pumpkin Rosti on Spinach Salad' and the 'Turkish Style Chicken & Rice' with best before dates of August 4th, August 5th, August 6th, 2017.

Other meals are unaffected, the company says.

Any customers in possession of one of the affected meals are being urged to discard it immediately.

In a statement, Ready to Eat CEO Hamish Coulter said they were horrified when they received the news.

"To learn that one of our trusted produce suppliers has let us down is extremely disappointing."

The Hamilton-based company was informed on Friday afternoon that its supplier Vegeez had returned a positive result for Listeria in one of its recent batches of cabbage.

On Friday evening the company contacted the 139 customers affected.

Vegeez general manager Glen Reid said it had taken full responsibility for the "very rare" event.

Mr Reid said in total there were 15 companies supplied with the affected cabbage, but all other companies managed to dump the product before using it.

Mr Coulter apologised to the company's customers and said they were putting in measures to ensure this did not happen again.

The company has discontinued the use of coleslaw for the foreseeable future.

If any customer has consumed what they believe to be a contaminated meal they are advised to seek medical advice.

All customers will be contacted again this week with refunds issued.

Newshub.