Cranbury spinach festival a hit for the second time

[news]

Angie Cook may as well have been handing out free chocolate for all the cheerful, bustling adults and out-of-breath children who stopped at the spinach festival on Wednesday afternoon.

But, all she needed was a bright orange sign posted outside of the Cranbury School reading "Cranbury Spinach, Free Today" to attract dozens of people to the 10 bushels of spinach in the parking lot.

Ms. Cook initiated the spinach festival after the E. coli scare in September, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned the public not to buy any bagged spinach because of an infected batch that was causing E. coli bacteria outbreaks. The bacteria, which resulted in 204 infections and three deaths, was traced back to Natural Selection Foods LLC of San Juan Bautista, Calif., where infected cattle feces were found on one of its four ranches in Monterey and San Benito counties, according to the FDA.

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