After officials with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) recently caught 64 illnesses caused by food, quickly identified the pathogen, and then found and removed the contaminated source, their job was all but done except for writing the final report.
But there it remained for the past month because the suspect tomatoes were not grown in Minnesota.
Like other states with fresh produce grown outside of its borders, Minnesota has to rely on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to “trace the tomatoes back to the farm of origin.”
As of Thursday, Oct. 15, neither FDA nor CDC had yet made it official, but word leaked out that the Chipotle restaurant locations in Minnesota where patrons became ill in late August from Salmonella Newport were supplied with tomatoes by Six L’s Packing Co.