The industry is continuing to suffer after a second outbreak of E. coli - this time in France - takes its toll on the supply chain.
The latest outbreak, which is said to be the same strain of the bacteria - E. coli O104:H4 - which killed 43 people in Germany and Sweden, has been traced to a charity event at a children’s play centre in a suburb of Bordeaux.
French officials have linked the outbreak with sprouted seeds supplied by Ispwich-based mail order vegetable seeds company Thompson & Morgan, a claim strongly rejected by the firm. It said it had supplied three samples to UK health authorities for testing.
“We note that the French outbreak seems to be localised to a specific event, which would indicate to us that something local in the Bordeaux area, or the way the product has been handled and grown, is responsible for the incident rather than our seeds,” said a spokesperson for Thompson & Morgan.
Thompson & Morgan has removed sprouting varieties of rocket, white mustard and fenugreek from sale as a "pre-cautionary measure".
Tests on sprouting seed rocket, sprouting seed white mustard and sprouting seed fenugreek are being conducted at a laboratory in the north of England.
FPC CEO Nigel Jenney echoed the view that the incidents in France and Germany have followed local consumption and expressed anger over the way both situations have been handled.
He said: “A business has been named [by the French] with no proven link...
"We continue to press DEFRA for answers but we are not receiving them.”
FPC added in a statement: "FPC has been pressing the Food Standards Agency for greater clarification of its definition of ‘sprouted seeds’ to avoid confusion with ‘seeds for sprouting’. We are concerned that whilst the description on the seed packaging may be ‘for sprouting’, the products causing concern were not sprouted in the UK, but were simply seeds exported from the UK."
The cause of the French outbreak has not been confirmed by the European Food Safety Authority.
Confidence is only slowly returning to the salad market a month after the E. coli outbreak.
One supermarket supplier told freshinfo beansprout sales are down between 20 and 30 per cent since the outbreak in Germany.
Gary Marshall, MD of Bevington Salads, said: “The E. coli outbreak made things difficult, but confidence is starting to come back a bit now.” English cucumbers made 400p for 12s compared to 250p recently on New Covent Garden Market.
The situation was still very slow on Birmingham’s wholesale market, however. One salad salesman told freshinfo UK cucumbers were commanding 400p for 12s compared to imports on 300p and prices as low as 50p when the E. coli crisis was at its peak. “But there is just not enough demand,” he said. “Even very good tomatoes are only making 300-400p and there are no salad products at all doing well. We need a week of consistently really warm, sunny weather to pick things up.” Dutch capsicum sales have also been hit.
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