Orange County NC Website
Food Safety News <br />Creamery recalls cheeses linked to at least 100 Salmonella cases <br />By Cathy Siegner | July 28, 2016 <br />The Chapel Hill Creamery in Chapel Hill, NC, is recalling all of its cheese products because they <br />have been linked to a growing Salmonella outbreak in North Carolina and elsewhere. <br />A local county health officer said Thursday that the outbreak has sickened at least 50 people in <br />North Carolina and about the same number in other states, and that it’s the same strain found in <br />samples of raw milk from the Chapel Hill Creamery. Nine of those sickened in North Carolina <br />have been hospitalized so far, she said. <br />These Jersey cows are the same kind as those at <br />the Chapel Hill Creamery. <br />“This is way more than usual, which is why we <br />started doing the investigation. We hit clusters <br />of Salmonella, especially in the summertime, <br />but we started seeing dozens and that’s when <br />we started doing questionnaires to identify a <br />common source,” said Colleen Bridger, director <br />of the Orange County Health Department in Chapel Hill. <br />Bridger said not all of the 50-plus in-state cases have been interviewed, but the “vast majority” <br />of those who have recalled eating cheese from the Chapel Hill Creamery. <br />“We’ve been monitoring the Salmonella cases for about three weeks and started doing <br />questionnaires about a week ago, and it was just yesterday that we felt we had enough <br />information to say this is probably the Chapel Hill Creamery. We didn’t want to make the <br />declaration until we were sure,” she added. <br />The products being recalled include all codes, packages and sizes of 14 varieties of cheese <br />manufactured by the Chapel Hill Creamery and distributed through retail locations, farmers <br />markets and restaurants throughout North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia and <br />Georgia. <br />The cheese varieties are: Quark, Danziger, Swiss, Paneer, Calvander, Hot Farmers Cheese, <br />Dairyland Farmers Cheese, Smoked Mozzarella, Fresh Mozzarella, Burrata, Hickory Grove, <br />Carolina Moon, Smoked Farmers Cheese, New Moon, and Pheta.