Ireland Recalls Ready-to-Eat Salads and a Pesto Over Possible Salmonella in the Pistachios Used as an Ingredient

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) published alert 2026.62 on October 8, 2026, classified as category 1 ("for action"), for the recall of three ready-to-eat products from a British retail chain: two salads with nuts, of 200 and 285 grams, and a pistachio and Parmesan cheese pesto of 115 grams. The reason is the possible presence of Salmonella in the pistachios used as an ingredient. The recall is carried out by the prepared-food manufacturer that makes all three products, whose country of origin is the United Kingdom.

The FSAI advises consumers not to eat the affected batches and asks retailers to remove them from sale and display recall notices at the point of sale. The notice is limited to batches with certain use-by dates, so it does not cover the entire production of these foods. These are preparations eaten without further cooking, so a contamination of the raw ingredient has no step that eliminates it before it reaches the plate, which explains why a finding in a single input forces the recall of products as different from each other as a salad and a pesto.

The authority describes the usual clinical picture of salmonellosis: symptoms appear between 12 and 36 hours after infection, within a range of 6 to 72 hours, and the most common is diarrhea, sometimes bloody, accompanied by fever, headache and abdominal cramps. The illness normally lasts four to seven days and the diarrhea can be severe enough to require hospitalization. Older adults, infants and people with weakened immune systems are more likely to become seriously ill.

The case illustrates a known risk of low-moisture foods: nuts do not allow Salmonella to multiply, but the bacterium can survive in them for a long time and pass into dishes that are not cooked afterwards. For a manufacturer, the lesson is to verify the raw ingredient before using it. TAAG's Elevia 1.1 kit detects Salmonella spp. by RT-qPCR and its datasheet includes low-moisture matrices such as chocolate with hazelnut filling or with milk, hazelnut and cocoa cream, and chocolate bar with peanuts, as well as stainless steel surfaces. Pistachio is not among the validated matrices, so its use here would be partial support that would require validating the matrix.