Fresh & Ready Foods LLC of Renton, Washington, announced on Nov. 7 that 2,414 Fresh & Ready Foods sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit Sandwiches could be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The 4.6-ounce sandwiches went only to Oregon and Washington, into employee break rooms, refrigerated vending and cafeterias. No illnesses have been reported to date.
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The notice ties the problem to a recall by CH Guenther & Son of certain biscuit products. Fresh & Ready Foods says that biscuit went into this one sandwich and nothing else it makes, and that no other products, production dates or facilities are affected.
SKU 3100048 and the 11/07 to 11/19 date codes
The FDA posted the company’s notice on Nov. 8. The recalled sandwich is sold in clear plastic film under SKU 3100048 and UPC 8 405493 0168 4, and the front label carries a “Fresh Thru” date between 11/07 and 11/19. Anyone checking a break-room refrigerator or a vending machine should match that printed date and the SKU against the sandwich in hand, rather than rely on the brand name alone.
The company produced the sandwiches at its Renton facility, and the FDA notice lists 2,414 units. The notice says the sandwiches were distributed between Oct. 25 and Nov. 4, a window of about ten days, while the printed dates run to Nov. 19, so some units from the final deliveries could still be inside their “Fresh Thru” date.
Break rooms, vending and cafeterias in two states
The channel matters here. Employee break rooms, refrigerated vending and cafeterias are closed circuits: the buyers are workers at specific sites rather than shoppers anywhere in a region, so the 2,414 sandwiches are concentrated in a relatively small number of workplaces across Oregon and Washington. The notice does not list the sites, and it does not say how many locations received product.
Distribution through workplaces differs from a supermarket recall. Buyers of these sandwiches may never see a package insert or a store shelf tag, and the person who restocks a vending machine is often not the person who eats from it. The notice tells people not to eat the product, to discard any that remains immediately, and notes that customers can request a full refund.
The company gave a recall line at 1-855-424-8390, staffed Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern time. The FDA’s consumer line, 1-888-463-6332, is separate. The FDA’s recall listing draws on company press releases and other public notices, and it says not every recall appears there, so a workplace that stocks vended food in either state should check its own supplier records too.
Listeria risks for pregnancy and weakened immune systems
Fresh & Ready Foods warns in its notice that listeria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems, and that pregnant women face a risk of miscarriage or stillbirth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 1,250 listeria infections and 172 deaths a year in the United States, making it the fourth leading cause of death from foodborne illness.
The bacterium is a particular problem for ready-to-eat refrigerated food. The FDA’s listeriosis guidance says it can survive and grow even under refrigeration, and that milder illness, with fever, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, often lasts one to three days. The invasive form brings headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. For a shared workplace refrigerator that held a recalled sandwich, the agency advises wiping spills, washing the walls and shelves, and sanitizing surfaces that touched the food with one tablespoon of chlorine bleach per gallon of water.
Diagnosis matters because early symptoms can look like an ordinary stomach bug. The CDC says listeria infection is usually confirmed by a lab test that grows the bacterium from a body fluid or tissue sample. Invasive illness is treated with antibiotics, while most intestinal illness clears without them and antibiotics are reserved for very ill patients or those at risk of becoming very ill. People in the higher-risk groups who ate one of these sandwiches and feel unwell should tell a clinician about the recall.
A supplier problem and a separate 2025 recall
This is not the first listeria recall tied to the company. Food Safety News reported that Fresh & Ready Foods announced a separate recall on May 11, 2025, covering more than 80 ready-to-eat products distributed in Arizona, California, Nevada and Washington. In that case an FDA inspection in April 2025 had found listeria on equipment at a facility, and the strain matched samples from 10 hospitalized patients in an outbreak identified in December 2023.
The 2026 notice points elsewhere, to a supplier’s biscuit rather than the company’s own equipment, and the sources read for this report do not say what lot of biscuit was involved or what prompted the CH Guenther & Son recall. Fresh & Ready Foods says it used the affected biscuit only in this sandwich. Whether the supplier’s recall widens beyond this one sandwich is the open question, and the FDA’s recall listing is where an update would appear.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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