950 Pounds of Alfalfa Seed Recalled as FDA Sprout Outbreak Investigation Continues

A U.S. alfalfa seed recall has expanded the commercial footprint of an ongoing food-safety investigation beyond finished sprouts and back toward the seed supply itself. Berlin Seeds of Millersburg, Ohio, announced on September 23 that it is recalling 950 pounds of alfalfa sprouting seed because of potential contamination with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, known as STEC, and Salmonella.

The recall matters to growers and distributors because sprouting seed sits upstream of the retail product. A contaminated seed lot can move through multiple growers and produce repeated batches of sprouts, making traceability and supplier controls particularly important when regulators are trying to contain an outbreak.

The recalled seed reached customers across 44 states

According to the company announcement posted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Berlin Seeds sold the affected alfalfa sprouting seed through its Millersburg retail store and company website between February 13 and August 23, 2026. Distribution covered customers in 44 U.S. states, from Alaska and California to New York, Texas and Florida.

The product was sold in quarter-pound, half-pound, one-pound, five-pound and 50-pound packages. The five-pound and 50-pound packages carry lot code SAL2-24JB. The smaller packages do not carry a lot code, which makes purchase history and supplier communication especially important for customers trying to determine whether seed they hold is affected.

Why seed-level recalls are different from a normal retail recall

Sprouts have a distinctive food-safety profile because the warm and humid conditions used for germination can also allow bacteria present on seed to multiply. When investigators trace contamination to seed rather than only to one finished batch, the potential supply-chain consequences become broader: the same seed can have been divided among growers, planted at different times and distributed through different commercial channels.

That upstream risk is visible in the FDA's wider 2026 sprout investigation. The agency says an implicated alfalfa seed lot connected with an outbreak involving STEC and Salmonella was distributed to sprout growers and wholesale distributors in the United States and Puerto Rico, and was also shipped internationally to Canada, Mexico, Tahiti and Venezuela. FDA reported 55 illnesses across 15 U.S. states, including four hospitalizations and no deaths, in its outbreak update.

The investigation has moved beyond one sprout company

The outbreak was initially linked through epidemiological and traceback evidence to alfalfa sprouts distributed by Everything Sprouts of Minneapolis. FDA later identified at least one additional sprout grower that had received and used the same lot of alfalfa seed under investigation from a common supplier. By September 15, the agency said the seed supplier had agreed to initiate a recall of that implicated lot.

Berlin Seeds' September 23 announcement is therefore notable not simply because another food product has been recalled, but because it reinforces the importance of the seed distribution network in managing sprout safety. Businesses that grow sprouts commercially need to know not only which finished lots they shipped, but which seed lots entered each production cycle and where those seeds originated.

What growers and distributors should check now

Companies holding Berlin Seeds alfalfa sprouting seed should compare their inventory and purchase records with the recall information, including package size, purchase period and the SAL2-24JB lot code where applicable. The FDA's broader outbreak guidance also tells sprout growers and distributors that received recalled seed not to use or distribute it, and to discard affected seed and sprouts grown from it.

For the sprout industry, the episode is another reminder that traceability cannot stop at the finished container. Seed procurement, lot identification, grow records and downstream customer records can determine how quickly a business can isolate risk when an investigation moves upstream. That is commercially important even for companies far from the original outbreak, because sprouting seed is traded through networks that can cross state and national borders.

What Agrilinkage is watching

FDA says the wider outbreak investigation remains ongoing. The next significant development will be whether regulators identify additional growers, seed distributors or products connected to the implicated supply chain, and whether international authorities take further action in markets that received seed from the affected network.

Sources: U.S. Food and Drug Administration recall announcement for Berlin Seeds, published September 23, 2026, and FDA's ongoing outbreak investigation of STEC and Salmonella linked to sprouts, updated September 15, 2026.