FDA Changes Food Safety Protocol for Fresh and Frozen Berries
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced big changes to lower the risk certain viruses will end up in your fresh and frozen berries.
The prevention strategy specifically calls out norovirus and hepatitis A.
The viruses have caused outbreaks in berries imported into the U.S.
Food recalls have dominated headlines over the past year, with everything from deli meat to organic carrots being impacted. Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is changing the way frozen berries are handled in an effort to make them safer for consumers.
The FDA announced the changes in a “prevention strategy” to keep fresh and frozen berries from being contaminated with enteric viruses. Enteric viruses are viruses that can infect the intestines, causing symptoms like nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pain. These include illnesses like norovirus and hepatitis A.
While there have been no enteric virus outbreaks linked with berries grown in the U.S. over the last 35 years, the FDA points out that there have been outbreaks linked to imported fresh and frozen berries.
Meet the experts: Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; Benjamin Chapman, Ph.D., food safety expert and department head of Agricultural and Human Sciences at North Carolina State University
The news is raising a lot of questions about the safety of fresh and frozen berries, as well as why this is needed now. Here’s what food safety experts want you to know.
What does the new strategy say?
The new strategy largely revolves around sanitation, starting from when the berries are picked to how they’re managed and processed. The FDA specifically noted these key areas need to be addressed to lower the risk of future outbreaks:
Proper hygiene in field workers (who manage and pick the berries)
Management in sanitary facilities
Measurements to keep fruit from being cross-contaminated by viruses in the field and during processing
Measures to monitor and limit viruses in farm and facility workers who interact with the berries
The FDA also said that more scientific knowledge is needed about how certain viruses get on fresh and frozen berries and stay there.
The strategy is focused on berries because they have unique challenges in how they’re harvested (more on that in a moment) and they have been linked to norovirus and hepatitis A outbreaks. The strategy does not entail adding pesticides or chemicals to the process but rather focusing on avoiding people transferring germs to the fruit.
Why is this needed?
There have been multiple outbreaks of hepatitis A and norovirus linked with fresh and frozen berries in the U.S. “The individual risk from consuming a berry is low, but they have been linked to multiple outbreaks of enteric viruses and other pathogens,” says infectious disease expert Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
But berries pose a lot of challenges when it comes to norovirus and hepatitis A. “One of the biggest challenges is that because berries are extremely delicate, they are often hand-harvested,” says Benjamin Chapman, Ph.D., food safety expert and department head of Agricultural and Human Sciences at North Carolina State University. If someone who harvests the berries is sick or comes into contact with one of the viruses and doesn’t practice good hand hygiene, they can transfer the virus to the berries, he points out. “Employee and harvester contamination has been identified as a root cause in numerous incidents,” Chapman says.
Once berries are contaminated, it’s hard to get those viruses off, Chapman says. “Because berries are so delicate, there aren’t a lot of options for post-harvest treatment,” he says. “If you try to wash, say, a raspberry in any commercial way, you end up with pulp.” Even freezing them isn’t usually helpful. “Freezing doesn’t inactivate a pathogen,” Dr. Adalja says. “Virus samples are routinely frozen for storage and viruses have been recovered from permafrost.”
This isn’t just something America grapples with—it’s considered a global issue. A joint panel from the United Nations and World Health Organization declared in 2024 that frozen berries contaminated with hepatitis A and norovirus are one of the “highest global public health burdens.”
The most recent hepatitis A outbreaks in the U.S. happened in 2022 and 2023 and were linked to the same organic strawberry grower in Baja Mexico, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That outbreak reportedly caused 10 illnesses and four hospitalizations across California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.
Fresh and frozen berries have been linked to norovirus outbreaks for years, according to an FDA database, although these haven’t happened in imported berries in the U.S. in several years. Blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries have all been recalled due to norovirus concerns.
The FDA’s announcement doesn’t specify why these changes are being made now. However, the organization stresses that it hopes they will help make berries safer to eat in the future. “It’s great that the FDA is taking this step,” Chapman says. “But this is a challenge.”
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