McDonald's, Tim Horton's And Many Others Ban Tomatoes From All Meals

Florida's tomato industry is in"complete collapse" and $40 million worth of tomatoes will rotunless federal regulators quickly trace the source of asalmonella outbreak and clear the state's produce, an industryofficial said on Tuesday.

"We probably have $40 million worth of product we can'tsell. We've had to stop packing, stop picking," said ReggieBrown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato GrowersExchange.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Saturday warnedU.S. consumers that the outbreak was linked to eating certainraw red plum, red Roma, and red round tomatoes, and productscontaining these tomatoes. Several major restaurant and grocerychains have stopped selling those varieties.

Rick McNabb, a spokesman for Cara Foods, said raw tomatoes are no longer being served at Milestones, Montana's, Harvey's and Kelsey's.

"As the FDA started to identify more specifically where the affected regions could be, that's when we decided to take the steps as a precaution to stop serving the fresh tomato products right away," he said.

The tomato is quickly disappearing, albeit temporarily, from many restaurants and grocery stores due to a major salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 167 people, the latest in a series of disease flare-ups in the U.S. food chain.

Oak Brook-based McDonald's confirmed Monday that it has pulled tomatoes from its sandwiches, though the company hasn't detected salmonella bacteria in any of its tomato supplies. Other restaurant chains such as Burger King and Taco Bell have taken the same precaution, as have grocery stores, including Chicago's leading supermarkets, Jewel and Dominick's.

Produce managers at most of the nation's grocery chains spent the last two days removing potentially dangerous tomatoes from the shelves and posting signs telling shoppers that what they were still selling was, according to the Food and Drug Administration, salmonella-free.

At the groceries' deli counters, there were no BLTs to be had. All sliced, diced and chopped tomatoes have been eliminated from their menus.

Tim Hortons has also stopped serving tomatoes at its more than 2,800 stores in Canada and almost 400 U.S. outlets.

'While we are confident in our supply we are experiencing intermittent tomato supply issues due to the ongoing FDA investigation," Tim Hortons spokeswoman Rachel Douglas told the Canadian Press.