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The shocking practice of chemical spraying of fresh produce including organics at a mega healthfood store chain. The toxic chemical bottle is conveniently tucked away from prying consumer eyes!
Have you ever seen fresh produce at healthfood stores being misted or sprayed while you were shopping?
If you’re like me, you may have assumed it was just water to keep the produce moist to preserve freshness.
As it turns out, this assumption seems to be very, very wrong!
An alert consumer recently posted a set of photos to social media that show a very toxic product being used to spray produce at Sprouts Farmers Market stores.
If you haven’t heard of it before, Sprouts is a large healthfood store chain headquartered in Arizona. The company has 35,000 employees and operates nearly 400 stores across 23 states.
Naturally, I was quite shocked by these photos and decided to investigate the situation for myself. I have a Sprouts within a few miles of my home.
I normally do not shop there, but I stopped in anyway to take a look to either confirm or disprove what the social media post was claiming.
What I found 100% confirms what I saw on social media. 🤯
On the bright side, it provided yet another reason why buying produce from independently owned and operated healthfood stores, local farms, and farmers markets is worth every second of inconvenience and slightly more additional cost!
Toxic Antimicrobial on Your Produce
What exactly is the spray bottle hidden above the organic produce at the Sprouts store?
It’s called Sterilox. Here’s a closeup picture I took which matches the viral social media post.
What exactly is in this stuff?
In a nutshell, Sterilox is a disinfectant approved by the FDA in 2007 for use as a food-safe sanitizer to be used when re-hydrating or rinsing fresh produce, including leafy green vegetables. (1)
The Sterilox System uses salt, water, and electricity to generate a food-safe sanitizer on site and on demand and is currently used in thousands of U.S. retail supermarkets, the company said. (2)
While only salt, water, and electricity may have been used in 2007, it appears that Sterilox is quite a bit different now!
Chemstar, the company that manufactures Sterilox has on their website a bottle of the stuff with organic produce in the background. (3)
At the Sprouts where I took the photograph, the Sterilox was right above the organic produce section.
And yes, this stuff is allowed to be sprayed on organics! (4)
Here’s the safety data sheet on Sterilox Produce Maxx. (5)
Doesn’t look very safe or “organic”, does it?
Hypochlorous acid and 6000 ppm of Free Available Chlorine (FAC)?
For comparison, only 4 ppm chlorine is considered safe in drinking water, and it isn’t even safe to drink that! (6)
Consider that this antimicrobial being sprayed on your fresh produce contains 1500X that amount of chlorine. Granted, the product is diluted with tap water before spraying, but the amount of chlorine that remains on the produce itself will be astronomical and not in any way safe!
Fresh Cut Fruit
If you thought that spraying an antimicrobial on fresh produce was concerning, here’s the really bad news.
Sterilox (or Aqualox or Aquatine… the same thing, just different names) is being sprayed directly on the fresh cut fruits and vegetables sold in containers too.
Believe it or not, restaurants often use it to crisp up the veggies on salad bars as well.
Have you ever opened a container of fresh-cut organic produce from the health food store and washed it before eating?
I know I haven’t.
This is from the company’s website on using Sterilox with fresh cut fruit. (7, 8)
To keep up with time-starved consumers, the fresh cut fruits and vegetables has become a high value signature category for the produce department. Rinsing fresh cut fruits and vegetables in Produce Maxx [Sterilox] reduces spoilage-causing non-public health bacteria to enhance shelf life of the product while also protecting against cross contamination.
Significant consumer and retailer economic benefits include:
- Protects against cross contamination when rinsing cut fruit in the same process water
- Reduces spoilage-causing non-public health bacteria and product breakdown for better quality
- Enables retailers to extend code date through purge reduction
- All these benefits with no organoleptic impact to the product
Here’s a screengrab in case the company disappears the page.
So, while you may think that, “no big deal, I can wash off the Sterilox sprayed on the fresh produce before eating”, it’s a whole different issue with the fresh-cut produce, wouldn’t you agree?
Convenience seems to always have a price, doesn’t it?
Is it just me, or does it seem like we’re being poisoned at every turn even if we try to avoid the chemicals?
Cut up your own organic fruit and veggies my friends!
What About Other Healthfood Stores?
While I have not found a bottle of Sterilox at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, these companies are certainly applying the same or a similar product to their produce as well. (9)
My advice would be to shop only at a locally owned health food store where you can speak to the manager directly and confirm that the produce is not being sprayed with an antimicrobial product.
Other great options are to get your produce from a real farmer’s market (not a fake one like Sprouts) or from local farms directly.
Big corporate chains cut corners and your health is not of primary concern. Profits are.
(1, 2) FDA Approves Sterilox Food Safety Solution for Food Contact
(3, 8) Sterilox Produce Maxx (scroll down for fresh cut fruit)
(4, 9) BUYER BEWARE: Things May Not Be What They Seem in the Produce Department!
(5) Sterilox Produce Maxx Safety Data Sheet
(6) Water Disinfection with Chlorine and Chloramine
(7) Chemstar Sterilox Fresh Solutions
Disgraceful practice. That is why we have so many people sick in Western societies. Buy form Farmer’s Markets if you can can.
I really don’t see the harm in this. I think you should read more into it. If you’ve ever heard of a company called Briotech or Force of Nature, they make products using hypochlorous acid, for skin, cleaning, and pets. I’ve actually used Briotech skin spray often during the covid shutdown instead of alcohols and harmful hand sanitizers. It is safe and has no toxic fumes or residues! Force of Nature has several certifications including Green Seal Certified and Clean Label Award. If you read from their website:
“Our technology uses an electrical current to break apart molecules of salt, water and vinegar and form them into two new ingredients:
Hypochlorous Acid:
an antimicrobial so gentle it’s used in wound healing, eye care & veterinary products and kills 99.9% of germs.
and
Sodium Hydroxide:
the detergent that dissolves grease, grime & soap scum. Gentle concentration of just .0000003%.
These two powerhouses create your all-in-one cleaner, deodorizer, EPA-registered disinfectant.”
Hypochlorous Acid even kills scary viruses like MRSA, Covid, staph, salmonella, and Norovirus, to name a few. For those of us who live in areas where farmers markets aren’t common or where it’s cold for more than half the year, buying organic produce at a store is the best we can do. And knowing we’re getting cleaner produce without viruses from a non-toxic spray is reassuring.
However, I do plan on contacting my local Wegmans to see what they use in their produce sprayers so I can be an informed consumer. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Did you see the label in the post? You are not even addressing the very high levels of chlorine in the product.
It seems similar to the same scam of “salt water” swimming pools that convert the salt to chlorine! At the end of the day, it’s still just a chlorinated pool that kills probiotics on your skin, in your lungs (vapor coming off the surface of the water) and ultimately in your body as well (the vapor is breathed in and gets into the blood).
Not sure how you would consider this “no harm”, but it’s up to you whether to buy or not! I will stick with unsprayed produce from my local farm.
If you don’t have farmer’s markets, I would consider Azure Standard. They have drops all over the country (hundreds if not over a thousand?) and they have safe organic produce.
As an aside, your comments seems like something a customer service rep from Sprouts would say. Just sayin’
So sad. Thanks Sarah!
Yes, I thought so too. What are these companies thinking??
Natural Grocers, formerly Vitamin Cottage, mists their produce. Does anyone know if they use or avoid these chemicals? I expect not, since they don’t sell anything with Apeel or Organipeel, but would like to know for sure.
I saw your previous article on the invasion of hydroponic in organics, and wonder if Natural Grocers avoids hydroponics.
It’s hard to find local, independently owned health food stores (none in my area). And the most popular produce booth at my local farmers market (in Parker, CO) uses fertilizer manure from a conventional farm so I expect it’s got undesirable residues of antibiotics, synthetic pestisides and herbicides, added hormones, vaccines, etc. What a challenge it can be to find wholesome food.
The misting system at Natural Grocers probably mixes in a similar product with the tap water. Just a guess as I don’t have one of these stores in my area to physically go and confirm like I did with Sprouts.
My locally owned health food store does not have a misting system … big difference in handling of the organic produce compared with the large chains.
UPDATE: Natural Grocers assured me that they do not use products like this in their misters. Also, they filter the tap water that is used.
Great news! Thank you for following up with this important information.
Many stores are also using Apeel on all sorts of whole fruits and vegetables. What in the world can we do?
Here’s the solution. You must buy local and independent. I buy zero organic produce from big health food stores. I buy all of my produce from independently owned health food store in my area and an urban farm I visit once a week.
You pay dearly for convenience and the lowest price of the big chains.
Oh my, Sarah! I shop at my farmers market every week and pre-order from a few as well. It does seem like we are being poisoned at every turn, but at least I’m finding out about it. Thank you for that! I do buy some fruits (not usually pre-cut) at the health food store and try to shop at a smaller one, but it is part of a small chain. So, I do wonder about some things. They have pledged not to have Apeel/Organipeel products there, but I still check behind them. I worry that their vendor could slip things by them at times. I do that with Azure as well. I still wonder about the Australian beef and when they will have mRNA shots. We really do have to verify for ourselves and share. Again, thank you for doing that.
Yes, you must always verify for yourself …. and be constantly rechecking as a “no, we don’t use Apeel” can change the next month. Bait and switch is a common tactic.
I would buy more from my local farmer’s market in Pinellas County, FL (Clearwater) but they don’t sell much organic produce, no grass fed meat either (all I buy).
You will have to travel to other counties then. Nearby counties have a lot!