Between early May and early June 2005 the Michigan Department of Community Health identified 11 state residents as being infected with an indistinguishable genetic strain of Salmonella Typhimurium. Eight of the cases were reported in children and five of the cases had required hospitalization.

Interviews with case patients indicated that all had consumed store brand orange juice from 1 of 2 grocery chains in Michigan in the week before becoming ill. Health investigators at the MDCH and the Michigan Department of Agriculture conducted a product trace back and learned that both store brands were made by the same processor in Florida. The company was identified as the Orchid Island Juice Company.

On July 8, 2005 the FDA issued a nationwide warning to consumers against drinking unpasteurized orange juice products distributed under a variety of brand names by Orchid Island Juice Company of Fort Pierce, Florida. As the number of reports of illness among Orchid Island Orange Juice consumers continued to rise, the company agreed to issue a recall adding frozen juice to the products of concern.

For a while Orchid Island Juice Company discontinued manufacturing unpasteurized orange juice. After restarting production, the firm’s private laboratory detected Salmonella in a sample of the juice, and on September 6, 2005 the firm once again recalled all fresh unpasteurized orange juice. Fortunately, no illnesses were linked to consumption of the juice this time.