On March 1, the FDA announced that it is expanding an import alert issued last July for all enoki mushrooms imported from the Republic of Korea to now also include enoki mushrooms from China for detention without a physical examination at U.S. borders (DWPE) to further protect public health.

Previously, this import alert only included enoki mushrooms from the Republic of Korea. From Oct. 2020 through Feb. 2023, state public health authorities conducted a sampling of enoki mushrooms from retail locations. Multiple state samples detected L. monocytogenes, which led to 18 recalls of enoki mushrooms in the U.S. since 2021. Eight of the recalls were linked to enoki mushrooms grown in the Republic of Korea, and 10 from China, were confirmed via labeling, traceback, or whole genome sequencing (WGS). 

During this time, FDA sampled and analyzed 127 shipments of enoki mushrooms imported from China and found 18 to be violative, representing a violation rate of more than 14 percent. This effort identified 15 firms with violative products out of at least 37 declared firms that had exported enoki mushrooms from China to the U.S. 

Additionally, a recent FDA multi-state outbreak investigation linked three cases of listeriosis to enoki mushrooms labeled as a product of China.

Given the latest data and information, the FDA is expanding the country-wide import alert to subject enoki mushrooms from China to DWPE to help prevent the importation of enoki mushrooms that appear to contain human pathogens that may be injurious to public health.