Outbreaks
Salsarita Shigella Outbreak
Salsarita’s Restaurant in the Walmart Home Office Café in Bentonville has reopened following a Shigella outbreak that made 275 sick in nine states according to the Benton County Health Department. According to the Arkansas State Health Department dozens of employees were also ill with Shigellosis.
The Benton County Health Department conducted an inspection on June 18, shorty after people started getting sick. Inspectors found nine violations on that inspection. Of those nine violations, five were marked priority, meaning they were concerns that needed to be fixed fast. Some violations included, employees not washing their hands or touching cooked food without wearing gloves. The report said raw chicken had been dripping on bottled drinks.
On a follow-up inspection on June 23, inspectors found seven violations, some of them the same as the previous inspection.
After the outbreak, Eurest, the third-party company in charge of managing the kitchen, hired a quality assurance manager and will retrain staff on the company’s safety protocols.
