Beware of the dip.
Sabra is one of the country’s most popular hummus brands, its chickpea puree ubiquitous in pretty much every grocery store east of the Mississippi. The company issued an initial recall on November 19th, and expanded that recall a bit a few days later, thanks to Listeria bacteria found at its manufacturing facility. Interestingly, the listeria wasn’t found in any actual products, just in the manufacturing facility, but that’s not that encouraging, really. Sabra has not revealed (if they even know) how the contamination occurred.
To find listeria in a manufacturing facility is not that crazy; listeria is a very common pathogen, the country’s third-deadliest, which has all kinds of crazy dangerous ways to infect and harm humans. What’s unusual is that this Sabra recall covers just about everything Sabra makes, and some stuff they don’t.
The recall, according to the FDA, affects pretty much every flavor of hummus, in every size configuration, with or without the accompanying pretzels or pita. CNN also reports that that recall has expanded to the various partnerships that have resulted in food not sold by Sabra that contains Sabra hummus, most notably an array of to-go sandwiches sold at 7-Eleven.
Basically, if you own a Sabra product with a “Best By” date anytime before January 24th, you are urged to throw it in the garbage and find some other source of hummus. (You can also make it yourself, which can be as easy as blitzing chickpeas or as complicated as rehydrating and peeling dried chickpeas.)
You can find a list of every product under recall – there are a lot – over at Sabra’s website.