July 29 - August 25, 2022
Daily Harvest Recalls Meal Kits Handed out at Venice Event Following 470 Cases of Mysterious Illness Direct-to-consumer meal kit company under fire for handling of outbreak tied to lentil and leek meal kit B Y S AM C ATANZARO Meal kit company Daily Harvest has recalled one of its products after 470 cases of a mysterious illness have been reported in people who had consumed the food sent to influencers and handed out at a Venice pop-up. Daily Harvest, a direct-to-consumer brand, has recalled around 28,000 lentil and leek crumbles meal kits. “From April 28 to June 17, 2022, approximately 28,000 units of the recalled product were distributed to consumers in the continental United States through online sales and direct delivery, as well as through retail sales at the Daily Harvest store in Chicago, IL, and a ‘pop-up’ store in Los Angeles, CA,” the company said in a press release last week. The pop-up store reference was a twoday event in Venice on May 20-21, where
samples were handed out to a “small number” of attendees. In April, prior to the pop-up, Daily Harvest sent influencers around the country the lentil and leek crumbles meal kit, which retails for $9.79. Founded in 2015 and launched the following year, Daily Harvest has long utilized influencers to promote its products. These same influencers are now exposing the company for its botched handling of their illnesses. Cory Silverstein, who runs an organic skincare company brand with his wife, told CNN he received the lentil and leek crumbles as part of a PR package in midMay. Soon after eating the product, he began to feel sick. “I’ve never experienced pain like that — it’s the first time I felt kind of helpless,” Silverstein told CNN. Silverstein spent time in an urgent care center where doctors attempted to determine what was wrong. A series of blood tests eventually indicated his liver enzyme levels that were off the charts, elevated as much as twelve times the normal range. On June 12, Pearson had his gallbladder removed. After weeks of not knowing the cause of the illness, his wife saw a post from another influencer Luke Wesley Pearson, who was reporting similar symptoms. The two realized they had both received these meal kits from Daily Harvest before they
Daily Harvest’s French Lentil + Leek Crumbles meal kit.
were distributed to the public. Caroline Sweet, Los Angeles-based actor and writer, told CNN she was also in the emergency room after days of being “completely doubled-over in pain” following the consumption of the lentil and leek crumble kit. While recovering, on June 17 Daily Harvest sent her an email telling her to throw away the kit and offering a $10 store credit. “It was just like a huge f**k you,” Sweet told CNN of the email. “The fact that they’re just handling it so poorly feels like such a huge slap in the face.”
Photos: Daily-harvest.com
An FDA spokesperson told the LA Times that the agency could not “confirm or deny if an investigation is planned or in progress” on items not already listed on its outbreak investigations web page. “However, the FDA takes seriously reports of possible adulteration of a food that may also cause illnesses or injury,” the agency added “Depending on the seriousness of the problem, an FDA investigator may visit the person who made the complaint, collect product samples,
Meal kit, see page 4
Legendary New Orleans Fried Chicken Restaurant Opening in Venice Willie Mae Seaton coming to Venice by end of summer BY DOLORES QUINTANA Venerable New Orleans icon Willie Mae Seaton is coming to Los Angeles with what is considered by some to be the best fried chicken in the United States as reported by Eater Los Angeles. Their hospitality group will open a full restaurant in Venice at 324 Lincoln Boulevard this summer and they plan to expand into the West Coast longterm. Willie Mae’s Scotch House is a huge part of the culinary scene and history of Louisiana and New Orleans specifically.
Seaton’s group has previously tested the waters in Los Angeles by partnering with the founders of HiHo Cheeseburger Jerry Greenberg, also of Sugarfish, and Lowel Sharron to make a fried chicken sandwich here in LA. It will be late summer when the restaurant opens, and will not be either a pop-up or a franchise, but everything you could expect from one of their locations in New Orleans: fried chicken, gumbo, red beans and all the traditional dishes from Louisiana. Willie Mae’s new venture will be in the same category as such restaurants as Dinah’s and Roscoe’s but since nearly everyone loves fried chicken, no one in Los Angeles is likely to complain that there are too many great options. Kerry Seaton-Stewart, great-
granddaughter of Willie Mae and current owner of Wille Mae’s Scotch House in Louisiana, will be running this new Los Angeles branch with her partner Mike Stewart. They will relocate to Los Angeles for most of the year and work in Los Angeles and New Orleans to keep both locations running. There is no estimated opening date as yet, but the restaurant’s reps say, according to Eater Los Angeles, that the restaurant will be open by the end of the summer season. Willie Mae’s Scotch House was founded in 1957 in the form of a bar and afterward moved to New Orleans’ 6th Ward and became the restaurant that New Orleans knows today. The restaurant has been through a lot, it made it through Hurricane Katrina, the death of the founder Willie
Photos: Facebook (@WillieMaesNOLA)
Mae Seaton, and the eventual gentrification of the city. Willie Mae’s Scotch House won the James Beard Award as America’s Classic Restaurant for the Southern Region and now that classic Southern-style will soon be coming to Southern California.