Short answer: if you have alfalfa sprouts in the fridge, read the label before you eat them. An outbreak that started in late May is still open. As of the last federal update, 55 people in 15 states are sick, four have been hospitalized, and the seed lot behind it went to more than one sprout grower.
Two things make this one unusual. It carries two different pathogens at the same time, and the company that supplied the seed has not answered the FDA’s request to recall it.
What the numbers say
The CDC last updated the count on September 1, 2026, and the investigation is still listed as open. Illness onset dates run from May 31 to August 8.
- 55 people sick in 15 states, 4 hospitalized, no deaths
- 46 infected with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, serotypes O26:H11, O103:H25 and O168:H8
- 7 infected with Salmonella Agona
- 2 people infected with both at once
- Minnesota and Wisconsin account for 38 of the 55 cases
Two pathogens in one outbreak usually means the problem arrived with the seed. A contaminated work table spreads one organism. A seed lot that picked up field contamination can carry whatever was in the water or the soil where it grew.
What has been recalled
Everything Sprouts, LLC of Minneapolis recalled products in two rounds. All of it comes in 5-oz containers under the Calco and Everything Sprouts brands.
- August 22: alfalfa sprouts, lots 222, 223, 225, 226, 230; Crunchy Protein Sprout Mix, lots 222, 223, 226, 230; Zesty Garlic Mix, lots 222, 223, 225, 226, 230. Distributed May 27 to August 21
- August 28: Robust Radish Sprout Mix, lots 223, 226, 230, 233. Distributed August 13 to 26, pulled over cross-contamination risk
The buyers were wholesale distributors, grocery stores and restaurants in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The FDA inspected the facility on August 19 and is still working through samples.
Two recall states, fifteen case states
Confirmed distribution of the recalled product covers two states. Sick people have turned up in fifteen: Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.
The FDA says the product may have traveled further than the records show. There is a second explanation, and the agency has already confirmed the piece it rests on: the same alfalfa seed lot went to at least one other sprout grower. Whatever that grower sold is a separate product, under a separate brand, with no recall on it.
This is why sprout outbreaks spread across state lines so easily. A single seed lot is a commodity. It gets split, shipped and sprouted by different companies, and every one of them turns that seed into a finished product a few days later.
The seed supplier has not answered
In its update the FDA writes plainly that the common seed supplier has not responded to the agency’s recall recommendation, has not sent a recall notice to its downstream customers, and has not told the companies that received the implicated seed lot to start their own recalls. That is the edge of a voluntary system. What happens when a company steps past it and keeps a contamination quiet is the Blue Bell story: route drivers pulled the ice cream off the shelves, no customer was told why, and it was the silence that put the company president in front of a jury. That case and two others are in our piece on food safety prison sentences.
The supplier has not been named publicly. Neither has the second grower. Almost every food recall in the United States is voluntary, which means it depends on a company agreeing to make one.
A second sprout outbreak is running at the same time
On September 4 Evergreen Fresh Sprouts, LLC of Moyie Springs, Idaho recalled broccoli sprouts after Montana state officials found Salmonella in a sample. The FDA and CDC are investigating 22 illnesses in four states, with two hospitalizations and no deaths. Onset dates run from July 7 to August 26. The recalled packages carry expiration dates of 9/7, 9/9, 9/11, 9/14 and 9/16. That farm has now appeared in outbreak records three times since 2011, and it is not an isolated case: why the same sprout companies keep appearing in those records.
Different pathogen, Salmonella Bovismorbificans. Different company, different crop, different state. Of the 19 people investigators interviewed, all 19 had eaten sprouts and 17 named broccoli sprouts specifically.
Two unrelated sprout outbreaks open in the same month is not a coincidence worth writing about. It is the ordinary rate for this category of food.
Why sprouts, again
Sprouts have been tied to outbreaks for thirty years, and the way they are grown is the reason.
Seeds are soaked and then held for days in the dark at room temperature with constant moisture and no airflow to speak of. Those are the conditions a lab would choose to grow bacteria on purpose. A few cells on the seed coat become millions by harvest, and the crop is eaten raw, seed and root included. How many of those cells it takes to make someone ill is covered in our piece on the infectious dose.
Rinsing the sprouts does nothing about it. Contamination sits on and inside the seed before sprouting starts, which is why the federal produce rule makes commercial sprout growers treat seed before it goes into the tank and test the spent irrigation water from every single batch. Both controls are aimed at the seed, and both can be defeated by a seed lot contaminated deeply enough. Who has to test the seed lot itself before it goes in depends on which country you are in: whose job it is to test sprout seed.
Microgreens are not the same crop
Alfalfa sits in both worlds, which is where the confusion starts. The same seed can be sprouted in a jar or grown as alfalfa microgreens in a tray, and the risk profile changes with the method.
- Sprouts: seeds sit in warm standing water, the whole plant including the seed coat and root goes on the plate, nothing is discarded
- Microgreens: seeds germinate on a substrate, the crop is cut above the root, and the seed hulls and root mat are thrown away with the tray
That is a real difference in exposure, and it is not a guarantee. Microgreens have their own recalls, and a 2021 Salmonella outbreak traced to a closed hydroponic operation showed that indoor growing removes some risks and not others. Contaminated seed is still contaminated seed, whichever way you germinate it.
What to do this week
- Check any sprouts in the fridge for the Calco or Everything Sprouts brand and the lot numbers above. Throw them out or return them, and wash whatever they touched
- If you ate recalled sprouts and have diarrhea, cramps or a fever, call your doctor and say which product you ate. E. coli O26 and Salmonella are treated differently, and the lab needs to know what to look for
- People over 65, children under 5, pregnant women and anyone with a weakened immune system should skip raw sprouts entirely. This advice predates the current outbreak by two decades
- Cooking sprouts through kills both pathogens. It also destroys the texture, which is why almost nobody does it
- If you grow at home, buy seed sold for sprouting with lot documentation, and treat home sprouting as a different job from growing microgreens in a tray
Bottom line
The outbreak is open, the recalled brands are known, and the seed behind it is still sitting somewhere without a recall notice attached. Until the supplier is named or the traceback closes, the safe assumption is that alfalfa sprouts from an unknown source carry a risk that rinsing will not remove.
Alfalfa is the classic case, and the same mechanism applies to every seed sprouted in a jar. The full picture, including who should skip raw sprouts entirely, is in our food safety guide. A second 2026 Salmonella investigation, closed in July, ran on dried greens powders: 131 cases across 38 states.
Sources: CDC outbreak page for E. coli and Salmonella linked to alfalfa sprouts, updated September 1, 2026; FDA outbreak investigation page for sprouts, August 2026; Everything Sprouts, LLC recall notices of August 22 and August 28, 2026; FDA and CDC outbreak investigation of Salmonella Bovismorbificans linked to broccoli sprouts, September 2026.
