When a student bought a salad from A.J.’s Café on March 1, she found a live yellow jacket inside the container.
A.J.’s Retail Supervisor Lisa Beasley said the yellow jacket appearance “was a very unfortunate incident that we regret has happened.”
Kirwan said it was an odd occurrance.
“Due to the time of year, we are a bit baffled as to how it got into the salad,” Saga Inc. General Manager Kevin Kirwan said in an email.
The wasp may have come with the lettuce, but the lettuce arrives pre-washed in sealed bags, he said.
“We have reported the incident to our suppliers,” he said.
To make salads, A.J.’s employees wearing gloves take lettuce from bags sealed by the supplier and place it directly into plastic takeout containers, according to A.J.’s employee senior Grace Ramsey. The lettuce is marked “pre-washed, ready for use” by the supplier.
“It’s just a straight transfer from the bag to the container,” she said.
Because the bags are roughly pillow-sized, each is not used up all at once. Employees reseal each bag by rolling the top down and wrapping the entire bag in plastic wrap.
Kirwan said the lettuce used in the salad which contained the yellow jacket came in a sealed bag but that the bag “did have small holes to allow for the product to give off gas. These holes are too small for a wasp to crawl through, though.”
The lettuce was grown in Yuma, Ariz., according to an email Kirwan received from the supplier.
A.J.’s handles its other salad ingredients similarly, Ramsey said. Employees fully prepare all the ingredients before they assemble the salad. The ingredients are stored in covered and dated containers until assembly. Once everything is ready, employees wearing gloves assemble the ingredients and place the salads in the takeout containers. Then they are either placed in the café’s display cooler or sold immediately.
“A.J.’s is about good customer service. We want you to eat your food. We don’t want to rip you off your five dollars for a salad,” Ramsey said. “If your food’s inedible, please bring it back. We’ll work out a solution. We’d love to help you.”
