Tahini and Salmonella: The Hidden Risk in a Pantry Staple

The list of tahini-related Salmonella incidents is long and spans multiple countries and producers.

In May 2026, the FDA flagged a Salmonella recall for Malazi-brand tahini sold in the United States. In February 2026, Canadian food safety authorities recalled Mahrousa-brand tahini after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency detected Salmonella during routine testing. In March 2024, Roland Foods recalled its Roland Tahini (100% Ground Sesame Seeds) after Michigan Department of Agriculture testing confirmed Salmonella presence. In 2021, two separate recalls were issued within weeks of each other, covering Al Kanater Tahini and Kareem Mart Tahina Ground Sesame Paste, both detected through Michigan state testing programs.

The most significant incident before these was a CDC-investigated multistate outbreak in 2018 linked to tahini produced by Achdut Ltd. in Israel. Multiple brands were involved, including Achva and Baron's. Whole genome sequencing confirmed the strain in patients matched the strain in imported tahini samples. The contamination entered the United States through international supply chains and reached consumers in multiple states.

One pattern stands out across all of these incidents: contamination was only discovered through testing. In most cases, no illnesses had been reported at the time of recall. The tahini did not look different. It did not smell unusual. It tasted exactly as it should.

The reason tahini keeps appearing in recall notices is not bad luck or poor manufacturing practice across multiple unrelated companies. It is chemistry.

The Low Water Activity Problem

Water activity (aw) measures how much "free" water is available in a food. Bacteria need free water to grow and reproduce. At water activity below 0.93, Salmonella cannot multiply. Tahini has a water activity well below that threshold, typically around 0.35 to 0.50, placing it firmly in the category food scientists call "low moisture ready-to-eat" (LMRTE) foods.

The problem is that low water activity is not the same as Salmonella-free. The bacteria cannot grow, but they survive. Research published in the Journal of Food Protection has shown that Salmonella can persist in low-water-activity environments for months and, under certain conditions, for more than a year. In fatty environments like sesame paste, survival times can be even longer because the lipid matrix provides a protective buffer against environmental stressors.

This is why a jar of tahini contaminated at the point of manufacture does not "self-decontaminate" during the months it sits on a warehouse shelf or in a consumer's refrigerator. The bacteria wait.

The Roasting Step and Its Limits

During commercial tahini production, sesame seeds are roasted at high temperatures. Roasting is supposed to serve as a "kill step," reducing pathogen loads to safe levels. In theory, adequate time and temperature should eliminate Salmonella. In practice, this step does not always work as intended.

Several factors complicate the kill step:

• Seeds can arrive at the facility already contaminated in clusters or pockets, creating uneven heating during roasting.
• If seeds are contaminated after roasting, during hulling, milling, or packaging, the kill step is irrelevant to that contamination.
• The fat-rich environment of sesame seeds can shield bacterial cells from heat, raising the effective temperature required for elimination.
• Cooling the seeds after roasting, then passing them through more equipment, creates opportunities for post-roast recontamination.

The FDA's guidance on LMRTE food production acknowledges that wet cleaning of production lines, which introduces moisture, can paradoxically increase contamination risk if not carefully controlled. Even a small amount of residual water in a dry production environment can allow Salmonella to grow, spread through the facility, and contaminate product that passes through after cleaning.

Origin and Supply Chain

Most of the tahini consumed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia is manufactured in the Middle East, primarily Israel, Turkey, and Lebanon, with sesame seeds sourced from Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, and other parts of East Africa and South Asia. Sesame is grown in the soil, and Salmonella is an environmental organism. Seeds can pick up contamination in the field, during harvest, in storage, or during transit across long international supply chains.

Import sampling programs catch some contaminated product. But with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sesame products moving through global trade each year, testing is far from comprehensive. The repeated detection of Salmonella in finished tahini products sold in North America and Europe reflects both the frequency of contamination in the supply chain and the limits of surveillance.

Part of what makes tahini-linked Salmonella risk significant for consumers is how broadly the paste is used. Most people associate tahini with hummus, but the ingredient appears across a wide range of products and preparations.

Hummus is the obvious example. Ready-made hummus sold in supermarkets typically contains tahini as a primary ingredient. But baba ganoush, halva, sesame-coated breads, certain salad dressings, Asian-inspired sauces, and many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurant dishes all use tahini. It is blended into smoothies, spread on toast as a nut-butter alternative, and used in baking.

A recall of a bulk tahini product used as a food service ingredient can affect dozens of downstream products without any of those products having a specific recall notice. Consumers eating restaurant hummus or a sesame-coated wrap have no way of knowing whether the tahini used was from an implicated batch.

Salmonella infections cause around a million illnesses in the United States each year, according to the CDC. Most healthy adults recover within four to seven days with rest and fluids. However, certain groups face more serious complications:

• Young children under five: their immune systems are not fully developed, and the infective dose required to cause illness is lower
• Adults over 65: immune function declines with age, and complications including bloodstream infection are more common
• Pregnant women: Salmonella infection can cause complications including preterm labor
• People with weakened immune systems: those undergoing chemotherapy, living with HIV, or taking immunosuppressive medications are at sharply elevated risk of invasive disease

For these groups, even products that passed routine testing present meaningful risk, because Salmonella contamination in a batch can be unevenly distributed. A negative test on one jar in a production run does not guarantee all jars in that batch are clean.

The phrase "food contaminated with Salmonella may not look, smell, or taste spoiled" appears in almost every tahini recall notice, and it is not boilerplate. It is the defining challenge.

With mold or spoilage bacteria, consumers often get a sensory warning. With Salmonella in a product like tahini, there is no signal. The oil does not separate differently. The color and texture are unchanged. The nutty, slightly bitter flavor is unaffected. A family can work through an entire jar over several weeks without any indication that the product was contaminated when it left the factory.

This invisibility makes routine recall monitoring genuinely important. Anyone who regularly consumes tahini or products made with it should have a system for checking current recall notices.

Tahini labels generally list only "sesame seeds" or "sesame" as the ingredient, occasionally with a small amount of salt. There is no way to determine from the ingredient list whether a product was manufactured in a facility with robust pathogen controls or whether it was produced in a region where sesame contamination rates are higher.

What you can check:

• Brand and UPC: recalls are issued with specific brand names, UPC codes, and lot numbers. The lot number or production date code is usually printed on the bottom or side of the jar.
• Country of manufacture: some labels disclose the country where the tahini was made. This is not a guarantee of safety, but it can help you cross-reference against import alert histories.
• Expiration or best-by date: recalls typically specify the best-by dates of affected product. Matching your jar against a specific recall requires checking this code.

Standard food safety practices apply to tahini as they do to any low-acid, ready-to-eat food:

• Refrigerate after opening. Tahini does not require refrigeration for shelf stability, but refrigeration slows any chemical changes that could affect quality. It does not eliminate Salmonella that is already present.
• Use clean utensils. Cross-contamination within the kitchen can spread any contamination in the tahini to other surfaces.
• Do not assume cooking eliminates risk. If you blend tahini into a cold sauce, hummus, or dressing that is served without heating to a safe internal temperature, any contamination present survives. Hummus, baba ganoush, and raw tahini dressings are all consumed without a cooking step.
• Follow recall notices. The FDA maintains a searchable recall database. If you buy tahini regularly, checking it when a new recall is announced takes less than a minute.

The tahini industry is aware of the problem, and some manufacturers have invested in improved kill-step validation, facility sanitation protocols, and supply chain auditing. The FDA's LMRTE guidance, updated in recent years, provides detailed recommendations for controlling Salmonella in dry production environments. Larger commercial producers often use validated thermal processing to demonstrate that their roasting step achieves a defined log reduction in Salmonella.

The challenge is that tahini production is globally distributed across many small and medium manufacturers, and not all operate under the same regulatory oversight or invest equally in pathogen control. Import testing programs help but cannot sample every shipment comprehensively. The pattern of repeated recalls from different producers over many years suggests that the problem is structural, not limited to any single company's practices.

Tahini is a nutritious food with a well-earned place in a healthy diet. The goal is not to avoid it, but to stay informed. Checking recall notices before consuming a jar you have had in the pantry for a while takes minimal effort, particularly for households with young children, elderly members, or anyone who is immunocompromised.

Using IngrediCheck, you can scan packaged foods that list sesame or tahini as an ingredient and quickly check whether those products are flagged for recalls or contain allergens your family needs to avoid. For a broader look at how undeclared allergens lead to recalls, see Undeclared Allergens: Why Food Recalls Keep Missing the Label. When tahini is an ingredient in a processed food rather than a standalone jar, it can disappear into a long ingredient list. Scanning the barcode puts that information at your fingertips at the point of purchase.

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