Two people in Florida reportedly made a grisly discovery while munching away at some Fresh Express’ Organic Marketside Spring Mix salad – a decomposed bat nestled amid the baby lettuce and radicchio.
The salad brand announced a “precautionary recall” of the salad from Walmart stores in the southeastern U.S. due to what it described as “extraneous animal matter” being “allegedly found in a single container of salad.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was more forthcoming about the species of the offending animal.
“Two people in Florida reported eating some of the salad before the bat was found,” the CDC revealed.
The federal health protection agency added in its release that the bat’s corpse was being sent to a rabies lab for laboratory testing, because the animal’s “deteriorated condition” made it difficult to immediately rule out whether it had rabies.
READ MORE: Here’s why your bagged salad is a food poisoning risk
The people who ate the salad appear to be in good health, but are expected to undergo post-exposure rabies treatment as a precaution.
Both Fresh Express and the CDC say there are no other reports of bats found in packaged salads. No other salads in Fresh Express’ product line are subject to the recall, although they may now be subject to increased scrutiny and caution from customers.
It’s not the first time the salad brand has fielded complaints about unwanted protein sources in its offerings, as this Facebook thread reveals.
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