Cheese Recall Expands as New Products Added to Listeria Scare

Rico Brand has recalled its ready-to-eat enchiladas, warning its customers of the products’ potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

The company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, announced the recall on February 12, but it wasn’t posted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website until Wednesday.

The announcement comes after Rizo-Lopez Foods, Inc., of Modesto, California, recalled its dairy products, including the Queso Fresco cheese used in the ready-to-eat enchiladas. The Rizo-Lopez recall was due to a nationwide Listeria outbreak.

Listeria “can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems,” according to Rico Brand’s announcement.

“Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women,” the announcement read.

The FDA is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to examine “illnesses in a multi-year, multistate outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections linked to queso fresco and cotija cheeses manufactured by Rizo Lopez Foods, Inc., of Modesto, California,” according to its website.