In October I intend to file a citizen petition asking the Food and Drug Administration to require a warning statement on the label of raw and lightly cooked sprouts — the same kind of statement FDA has required on unpasteurized juice since 1998.
Before it goes to the docket I want it read by the people most likely to find the holes: sprout growers, seed suppliers, retailers, restaurant operators, state and local health officials, consumer advocates, and anyone who has been sick from sprouts. Send comments to bmarler@marlerclark.com by Friday, October 9. I will post a revised draft before I file. Here is a link to Petition – https://www.marlerblog.com/files/2026/09/Sprout-Warning-Label-Petition_MarlerClark_9-27-26.pdf
Why now
Two sprout outbreaks are open at the same time. Alfalfa sprouts grown in Minnesota have sickened 55 people in 15 states, four of them hospitalized. Broccoli sprouts grown in Idaho have sickened 32 people in six states, three hospitalized, by CDC’s September 24 count. Together that is 87 people in 19 states, seven in the hospital. The broccoli sprout recall was announced September 10 for bags delivered between August 24 and September 2; twenty-five of the thirty-two people were already sick by August 23. On September 24 FDA reported that broccoli sprouts collected from a Washington grocery store and from a sick person’s home both matched the outbreak strain. The organism was on the shelf, in a package that said nothing.
The alfalfa seed lot went to growers and distributors in sixteen states, Puerto Rico and four countries, and on September 23 an Ohio seed company recalled 950 pounds of it sold to home sprouters in forty-four states, in small bags that carry no lot code. As of September 24 FDA still had not named the supplier.
Twenty-eight years of the same advice, none of it on the package
On August 31, 1998, FDA told children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems not to eat raw sprouts. It said it again on July 9, 1999, and extended the advice to mung bean and lightly cooked sprouts on October 2, 2002. CDC said the same thing in 1999. That same year FDA wrote into the Food Code that hospitals, nursing homes, day care centers and senior centers may not serve raw seed sprouts at all; every state but California has adopted an edition of the Food Code, and California has the same rule in its own statute. FDA’s current guide for older adults and immunocompromised people lists raw sprouts of any kind among the foods to avoid.
Every one of those statements was delivered by press release, talk paper, model code or booklet. A press release lasts one news cycle. A label is there every time the product is picked up, which is where the decision to eat it is actually made. I first asked FDA for this in March 2003. Since then the agency has counted 52 sprout outbreaks and more than 2,700 illnesses in this country between 1996 and 2020 alone, and has said for years that contaminated seed is the likely source of most of them.
What the petition asks
The petition asks FDA to amend 21 CFR 101.17, the section that already carries the warnings on untreated juice, iron supplements and shell eggs, by adding a paragraph for sprouts. The statement it proposes:
WARNING: Sprouts may contain harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria, that can cause serious illness, kidney failure or death. Sprouts are eaten raw and cannot be pasteurized, and the bacteria may be inside the seed, where washing cannot reach them. Children, the elderly, pregnant women, and persons with weakened immune systems should not eat raw or lightly cooked sprouts.
It would be boxed, with WARNING in bold capitals, in type no smaller than 8 point. Packages too small to carry it could use a placard at the point of sale. The same statement would appear on a sign or menu wherever sprouts are sold loose — deli counters, sandwich shops, salad bars — and on the listing wherever they are sold online. It would also go on seed sold at retail for home sprouting, because FDA considers seed for sprouting to be food and this year’s seed lot reached home kitchens in forty-four states. Sprouts treated by a validated process that reduces pathogens would be exempt, exactly as treated juice is exempt today. The rule would take effect sixty days after publication; FDA wrote the juice warning in seventy-five days in 1998, proposal to final rule, and urged juice makers to start using the statement the day it proposed it. The petition asks FDA to do the same for sprouts.
The petition does not ask FDA to ban sprouts. It leaves the product on the shelf and the decision with the shopper, who for the first time would have the same information FDA has been giving her, everywhere but on the package, since 1998.
What I want you to tell me
1. The words. The proposed statement runs sixty-two words. The juice warning runs thirty-three. FDA’s own focus groups in 1998 preferred short statements, and a reviewer of the draft made the same point. My answer was to keep three facts the juice warning does not need — sprouts cannot be pasteurized, the bacteria may be inside the seed, and the at-risk groups should not eat them — and cut everything else. The longer version I published on September 11 is now offered as consumer-education text, not label copy. Is sixty-two words still too many? Should Listeria stay? Should miscarriage be named?
2. Small packages. A four-ounce clamshell has little room. Is a point-of-sale placard the right answer, or should the label carry a shorter form?
3. Seed for home sprouting. This is the newest request in the draft and the one most likely to draw objection. If you think it belongs in a separate petition, say so.
4. Shoots and microgreens. FDA’s sprout rule excludes plants grown in soil and harvested above the soil line. The draft asks that the warning follow the product rather than the growing method. Growers of shoots and microgreens, I want to hear from you.
5. Restaurants and delis. A large share of sprout illnesses trace to sandwiches and restaurant meals, not retail packages. Is a sign or a menu line workable, and who enforces it?
6. Cost and treatment. Sprout growers: what would relabeling cost, and what pathogen-reduction process should qualify for the exemption?
7. Labels that did not work. FSIS gave up on labeling breaded stuffed chicken in 2024 and declared Salmonella an adulterant instead. The draft answers that those labels failed because people cooked a raw product as if it were cooked, and there is no cooking step here. If you think the comparison cuts the other way, tell me why.
8. Anything I got wrong. Every fact in the draft carries a footnote and every source is listed at the end with a link. If a number, a date or a citation is wrong, tell me which one.
How this works from here
Comments are open until October 9. I will read every one, post a revised draft, and then file the petition in FDA’s citizen petition docket. Once it is filed, anyone can submit a comment to FDA directly at regulations.gov, and FDA has 180 days under its own rules to respond. The draft has already had one round of outside review from people who know this ground well, and it is better for it. A second round from the people who grow, sell, serve, regulate and eat sprouts will make it better still.
Twenty-eight years is long enough for the package to say nothing. Help me get the words right.
Recent Comments