Kettle Cuisine LLC of Savage, Maryland is recalling its Marketside Tomato Bisque Soup Kit, 14 ounces (397 g), because the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The kits were sold exclusively at Walmart. The company announced the recall on August 12 and FDA posted the announcement on August 13.

The recalled kits carry UPC 194346474004 and a use-by date of 8/22/26, and come in a wrapped tray marked with the product description label and a printed use-by code. Kettle Cuisine shipped 3,240 packs between June 30 and July 7 to select Walmart stores in twenty-nine states: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The company says routine testing it ran itself returned a presumptive positive for Listeria, and it pulled the product rather than wait for a confirmed result. No illnesses have been reported. That is how this is supposed to work, and it is worth saying out loud: the companies I end up suing are usually the ones that found something and sat on it, or never looked at all. Kettle Cuisine says its investigation is continuing in coordination with FDA.

The timing is what consumers need to hear. The use-by date on these kits is August 22 — still ahead of us. This is refrigerated product with shelf life left on it, which means kits bought in early July can still be sitting in refrigerators right now. Listeria is the rare foodborne pathogen that grows at refrigerator temperature; a cold shelf slows most bacteria down and does nothing at all to this one. Do not smell it, do not taste it, do not decide it looks fine. Throw it out or take it back to Walmart for a refund, then wash your hands and clean and sanitize the shelf, the drawer, and anything the tray touched.

Listeriosis is not a twenty-four-hour stomach bug. Symptoms can surface days or even weeks after exposure — as long as ten weeks in some cases — which is why people who ate a recalled food a month ago still need to pay attention. Invasive infection brings fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions, and it falls hardest on newborns, adults over 65, and anyone whose immune system is compromised. In pregnancy the mother’s own illness can look like nothing more than the flu while the infection causes miscarriage, stillbirth, or life-threatening infection in the newborn. A pregnant woman who ate one of these kits and runs a fever should call her doctor rather than wait it out.

Consumers with questions can reach the Kettle Cuisine hotline at 617-409-1104, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern.