Food Truck Salmonella Outbreak

Clover board via Flickr/j_lai

One of Boston’s most popular (and healthy) food trucks, Clover, had to unexpectedly shut down operations this past weekend due to a possible salmonella contamination. The company, Clover Food Labs, also has four brick and mortar locations in Cambridge and Burlington (and soon to be a fifth on Newbury Street). The closures were announced on the company’s website:

We learned late Friday that there is a Salmonela outbreak in Massachusetts. Some of the confirmed cases ate at Clover over the course of the days leading up to their illness. Of course, the idea that somebody could have become sick eating our food is shocking, and very concerning. The state told me they don’t know yet where the Salmonela is coming from and are currently investigating.

This is something we take very seriously. Clover has never been responsible for any food poisoning or food borne illness that we know of. That’s because we operate clean and take this sort of thing really really seriously.

We reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and they responded with this statement:

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is working cooperatively with the City of Cambridge and other municipalities to investigate and identify the source of a recent Salmonella outbreak. At this point, twelve cases have been confirmed. The investigation is ongoing.

The MDPH website says,”Salmonella germs must be swallowed to cause disease. Usually this happens when someone eats food that has been contaminated with the germs and has not been properly handled, prepared or cooked.”

Germs can also spread when people do not wash their hands thoroughly after using the restroom, changing diapers, or handling reptiles. People can spread the germs to anyone or anything they touch, especially food. Foods that are the mostly likely to cause salmonella germs are uncooked food products from animals, such as eggs, egg products, meat, meat products, poultry, unpasteurized milk, and other unpasteurized dairy products. Cooking and processing food will kill the germ.