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Daily Harvest recall: Influencers recount harrowing experiences with crumbles, blast company’s handling of recall
The direct-to-consumer brand has long utilized a network of online influencers to promote its products. Now several influencers, who say they were sickened, say the company’s lackluster handling of the crisis is putting new responsibility on the influencer community to warn the public.
It’s also exposing the swift fallout that can emerge when you aggrieve a demographic with such a wide internet reach.
“That is what built them up to be like a billion-dollar valuation company, is all these influencers who did the marketing for them,” he added. “At this point, it’s the influencers who are alerting the public that you might end up in the hospital if you eat this product.”
After consuming the product, Silverstein said, “I’ve never experienced pain like that — it’s the first time I felt kind of helpless.”
In response to CNN Business’ multiple requests for comment, Daily Harvest sent the latest update the company posted on their website related to the voluntary recall.
“We want to make sure you have the latest update on our voluntary recall of French Lentil + Leek Crumbles. We are taking this very seriously and doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this. Your health and well-being are our top priority,” the blog post states, adding that it has reached out to impacted customers and is taking a number of steps to investigate the cause.
“We are working with a group of experts to help us get to the bottom of this—that includes microbiologists, toxin and pathogen experts as well as allergists,” the statement from Daily Harvest adds. “All pathogen and toxicology results have come back negative so far, but we’re continuing to do extensive testing and will keep you updated.”
In an updated blog post Thursday evening, the company said it has received approximately 470 reports of illness or adverse reaction, and the investigation into the root cause remains ongoing. It added that some 28,000 units of the recalled product were distributed in the US between April 28 to June 17.
On June 17, the company first emailed people who received the product warning that “a small number of customers have reported gastrointestinal discomfort” after consuming the crumbles and urging those who still had them to throw them away. It first posted a statement warning the public not to consume the crumbles on June 19.
Launched in 2016, Daily Harvest’s emergence as a household name was linked in large part to its aggressive social media campaigns. The company has received multiple celebrity supporters, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams (representatives for Paltrow and Williams did not immediately respond to CNN Business’ request for comment).
The meal kit company announced last November that it had secured Series D funding that valued Daily Harvest at over $1 billion.
Influencers track down a united source for mysterious symptoms
Silverstein said he spent time in an urgent care center where doctors scrambled to figure out what was wrong. He tested negative for all forms of hepatitis, the initial suspect, and did a slew of blood tests that eventually indicated liver enzyme levels that were off the charts. He says that levels of important liver enzymes were elevated as much as twelve times the normal range.
He spent weeks not knowing the cause of the mysterious illness, until he said his wife saw a post from fellow influencer Luke Wesley Pearson, a content creator from Portland. Pearson was reporting shockingly similar symptoms, he said, and the two realized they had both received these crumbles from the company before they were launched on the public market.
Pearson told CNN Business that he underwent emergency surgery on June 12 to get his gallbladder removed after experiencing gastrointestinal issues after consuming the crumbles.
Pearson says he tried the lentil crumbles twice, both times leading to intense stomach aches. It was the second try, however, that sent him to the ER. After symptoms that included “excruciating” stomach pains, fever, chills, itching of the hands and feet, and jaundice, Pearson underwent testing that revealed — just like Silverstein — elevated liver enzymes, as well as high bilirubin. Doctors ultimately decided to remove Pearson’s gallbladder.
For Pearson, it was only after seeing a viral TikTok by Abby Silverman that he realized the issues could be connected to the food he ingested immediately before his issues began. Silverman, a creative director in New York, posted a video that has garnered more than 100,000 likes on TikTok detailing her own experience after eating the Daily Harvest product. She said the lentils similarly landed her in the ER, twice, with alarmingly high liver enzyme levels. While she suspected it may be from the crumbles, she said she formally connected her medical crisis with the lentils after an email from Daily Harvest on June 19 recalling the food item led her to a Reddit thread of scores of other people detailing similar symptoms. Silverman’s lawyer, Mark Apostolos, confirmed to CNN Business in a statement that medical records document her illness and symptoms.
“It’s interesting because I have seen a lot of people on social media over the years try Daily Harvest, which is why I said yes to the PR package,” Silverman told CNN Business.
“This whole health situation has just caused so much anxiety,” said Silverman, who has retained a lawyer, Apostolos, to deal with the fallout. “Obviously, I didn’t expect this. I made the video that I did because I feel like they weren’t doing enough to make people aware of what was going on — I figured people probably still had this in their freezer.”
“We are investigating and evaluating all legal remedies for Abby, who was stricken with illness after consuming this product that was mailed to her,” said Apostolos in a statement.
Another customer who had her gallbladder removed was Candice Smith, who told CNN Business she initially thought she was having a heart attack after consuming the product. “It was the worst night of my life,” said Smith, the CEO of French Press Public Relations in Raleigh, of the night she rushed to the hospital — where she says she stayed for four days undergoing tests on her enlarged liver and elevated liver enzymes. Her gallbladder was removed on June 19.
The company declined to comment on claims that customers underwent gallbladder surgeries related to its product. All of the people who spoke to CNN Business said doctors were initially puzzled by their symptoms.
Smith said she had no relevant pre-existing medical conditions before the hospital visit. “I try to be healthy. I eat plant-based, I’m trying to do all the right things,” said Smith. “What am I doing here? Why am I even here? Why am I experiencing this level of pain in my life?”
Company’s response slammed as insensitive
Caroline Sweet, a freelance actor and writer in Los Angeles, said she was in the emergency room emerging from a CT scan after enduring days of being “completely doubled-over in pain” when she received an email on June 17 from Daily Harvest informing her to throw away the crumbles and offering her a $10 store credit. (The company said in a blogpost all consumers were issued a credit for the recalled product).
“It was just like a huge f**k you,” Sweet said of the email. “The fact that they’re just handling it so poorly feels like such a huge slap in the face.”
Sarah Schacht, a consultant and property manager in Seattle, said she similarly became “violently ill” after consuming the product that she said she was initially drawn to for its organic and health-forward marketing. “Everyone who’s on the internet has been served Daily Harvest ads, right?” she said.
Schacht has been vocal on Twitter about urging people to take samples to local health departments or their Food and Drug Administration offices.
Silverstein, meanwhile, said he was incredibly dismayed by the Instagram post Daily Harvest used to alert customers of the recall. The post, which was published on June 19, simply used a previous promotional picture of the crumble — and directed people to click a link for an “important message,” which directed them to a blog post about the voluntary recall. At a first glance, Silverstein said most people would assume that the post was promoting the product. Daily Harvest has since removed the post he referenced from their Instagram, which was widely blasted as insensitive.
The FDA told CNN Business in a statement that it cannot confirm or deny if an investigation is occurring that is not already listed on its website. “However, the FDA takes seriously reports of possible adulteration of a food that may also cause illnesses or injury,” an FDA spokesperson said in a statement.
The agency added that when specific consumer guidance can be developed, the FDA and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will publish outbreak advisories communicating that guidance to the public.
“I’m very angry because we are all being left in the dark without answers,” said Pearson. “I know that accidents happen all the time in the food industry, and I’ve just seen other companies who are completely transparent, speaking up and making loud and clear announcements of what’s going on and what the next steps are and what they found out so far.”
Silverstein added that he feels that some of the onus has fallen on influencers to alert their followers. While the company emailed customers and posted a statement on its website, he thinks they should be doing more to make people aware on social media.
While he and his wife have worked with Daily Harvest for some five years now, and never had any issues in the past, he said they have no choice but to “cut off our relationship with them.”
How much can — and will — China help Russia as its economy crumbles?
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with his China’s counterpart Xi Jinping during a signing ceremony following the Russian-Chinese talks on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 11, 2018.
Sergei Chriikov | AFP | Getty Images
Sanctions, asset freezes and withdrawals of international companies are hammering the Russian economy in response to President Vladimir Putin’s military assault on Ukraine, leaving Moscow with only one ally powerful enough to rely on as a source of potential support: China.
“I think that our partnership with China will still allow us to maintain the cooperation that we have achieved, and not only maintain, but also increase it in an environment where Western markets are closing,” Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Sunday.
U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan, in response, said it had warned Beijing that there “will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions, evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them.” On Monday, U.S. and Chinese diplomats discussed the issue over seven hours of talks.
Siluanov had made reference to U.S.-led asset freezes on nearly half of Russia’s central bank reserves – $300 billion of the $640 billion in gold and foreign currency that it had amassed since a previous wave of Western sanctions following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
The remaining reserves are in gold and Chinese yuan, effectively making China Moscow’s main potential source of foreign exchange to back up the spiraling ruble amid devastating capital outflows.
In some of Beijing’s most explicit comments on the sanctions yet, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday during a call with a European counterpart that “China is not a party to the crisis, nor does it want the sanctions to affect China.” He added that “China has the right to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
Spokespersons for the China’s Dubai consulate, the Abu Dhabi embassy and the South African embassy were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
How much could China help ease Russia’s economic pain? Quite a lot, theoretically.
If China decided to open up a full swap line with Russia, accepting rubles as payment for anything it needed to buy — including crucial imports like technology parts and semiconductors that Moscow has been cut off from in the latest rounds of sanctions — China could essentially plug most of the holes fired into Russia’s economy by the West.
But whether that’s entirely in Beijing’s interest to do, and how much it could backfire, is another matter.
“In terms of to what extent China could help Russia, they could help them a ton,” Maximilian Hess, a Central Asia fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told CNBC. “But they would be risking major secondary sanctions on themselves, major renewed trade and sanctions war with the U.S. and the West as well.”
Given the uncertain state of Chinese markets over the last few weeks, amid mounting inflation and a major new Covid-19 outbreak in the country, “it might not be the best time to do that,” Hess said.
A ‘no-limits’ partnership
Still, Beijing does have a long-held alliance with Russia and can benefit from its position.
Prior to the invasion, Beijing and Moscow announced a “no limits” strategic partnership they said was intended to counter U.S. influence. China’s position has been to ultimately blame the U.S. and NATO’s eastward expansion for the conflict, and on March 7 its Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Russia his country’s “most important strategic partner.”
“No matter how perilous the international landscape, we will maintain our strategic focus and promote the development of a comprehensive China-Russia partnership in the new era,” Wang said from Beijing.
(China would) be taking all the liabilities and risks of the Russian economy onto their own balance sheet at a time when the Russian economy is at its weakest in decades
Maximilian Hess
Central Asia fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute
And while China’s government has expressed “concern” over the conflict in Ukraine, it has refused to call it an invasion or condemn Russia, largely pushing Moscow’s narrative of the war on its state news outlets.
“China and Putin have a clear interest in working together more closely,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, wrote in an early March research note.
“China is happy to cause problems for the West and would not mind turning Russia gradually into its pliant junior partner.” It could also take advantage of its position to buy Russian oil, gas and other commodities at discounted prices, similar to what it’s been doing with Iran.
To what extent China’s leadership steps in to support Moscow will play a key role in the future of Russia’s economy. China is Russia’s top export market after the European Union; trade between China and Russia reached a record high of $146.9 billion in 2021, up 35.9% year-on-year, according to China’s customs agency. Russian exports to China were worth $79.3 billion in 2021, with oil and gas accounting for 56% of that. China’s imports from Russia exceeded exports by more than $10 billion last year.
“Russia can use China over time as a bigger alternative market for its raw material exports and a conduit to help circumvent Western sanctions,” Schmieding said.
“But for both countries with their very different perceptions of history, it could be an uneasy and fragile alliance that may not outlast Putin.”
The powerful alliance of the G-7 economies, composed of the U.S. and its European and Asian partners, can slap harsh secondary sanctions on any entity that supports Moscow. But the problem here is that China’s economy is the second-largest in the world and is a key part of global supply chains. It impacts global markets far more than Russia does. Any move to sanction China would mean much greater global effects, and likely economic pain for the West, too.
Treading a middle path on sanctions?
Beijing likely seeks a “third way somewhere between the binary choice of supporting Russia or refusing to do so,” analysts at New York-based research firm Rhodium Group wrote in a note in early March. That middle path involves “quietly maintaining existing channels of economic engagement with Russia … while minimizing the exposure of China’s financial institutions to Western sanctions.”
Indeed, in early March, the chairman of China’s banking regulator Guo Shuqing said that China opposed “unilateral” sanctions and would continue normal trade relations with the affected parties.
But maintaining that kind of economic engagement with Russia will be “hard to conceal under the current sanctions architecture,” Rhodium’s analysts wrote.
Could Beijing keep letting Russia access and trade with its yuan reserves, which total around $90 billion, or about 14% of Russia’s FX reserves? Yes. But what if Beijing allowed Russia’s central bank to sell yuan-denominated assets for dollars or euros? That would likely expose it to sanctions.
China can still trade with Russian firms in rubles and yuan through the Russian banks that haven’t yet been sanctioned. But despite many years of working to increase bilateral trade in their own currencies, the vast majority of that trade – including 88% of Russian exports – is still invoiced in dollars or euros.
Not only that, but China could be essentially catching a falling knife by taking on the credit and sanctions risks of Russia’s rapidly deteriorating economy.
“China could alleviate the vast majority of the pain,” Hess said. “But if they offered those swap lines and everything, effectively they’d be taking all the liabilities and risks of the Russian economy onto their own balance sheet at a time when the Russian economy is at its weakest in decades.”
“So that’s maybe not the wisest move economically,” Hess said. “But politics are different decisions.”
Afghan families are selling their children so they can eat as the economy crumbles
But Parwana’s laughter disappears as she returns home, a small hut with dirt walls, where she’s reminded of her fate: she’s being sold to a stranger as a child bride.
The man who wants to buy Parwana says he’s 55, but to her, he’s “an old man” with white eyebrows and a thick white beard, she told CNN on October 22. She worries he will beat her and force her to work in his house.
But her parents say they have no choice.
As international aid dries up and the country’s economy collapses, they’re unable to afford basic necessities like food. Her father already sold her 12-year-old sister several months ago.
Parwana is one of many young Afghan girls sold into marriage as the country’s humanitarian crisis deepens. Hunger has pushed some families to make heartbreaking decisions, especially as the brutal winter approaches.
The parents gave CNN full access and permission to speak to the children and show their faces, because they say they cannot change the practice themselves.
“Day by day, the numbers are increasing of families selling their children,” said Mohammad Naiem Nazem, a human rights activist in Badghis. “Lack of food, lack of work, the families feel they have to do this.”
An impossible choice
Abdul Malik, Parwana’s father, can’t sleep at night. Ahead of the sale, he told CNN he’s “broken” with guilt, shame and worry.
He had tried to avoid selling her — he traveled to the provincial capital city Qala-e-Naw to search unsuccessfully for work, even borrowing “lots of money” from relatives, and his wife resorted to begging other camp residents for food.
But he felt he had no choice if he wants to feed his family.
“We are eight family members,” he told CNN. “I have to sell to keep other family members alive.”
The money from Parwana’s sale will only sustain the family for a few months, before Malik has to find another solution, he said.
Parwana said she hoped to change her parents’ minds — she had dreams of becoming a teacher, and didn’t want to give up her education. But her pleas were futile.
On October 24, Qorban, the buyer, who only has one name, arrived at her home and handed 200,000 Afghanis (about $2,200) in the form of sheep, land and cash to Parwana’s father.
Qorban didn’t describe the sale as a marriage, saying he already had a wife who would look after Parwana as if she were one of their own children.
“(Parwana) was cheap, and her father was very poor and he needs money,” Qorban said. “She will be working in my home. I won’t beat her. I will treat her like a family member. I will be kind.”
Parwana, dressed in a black head covering with a colorful floral garland around her neck, hid her face and whimpered as her weeping father told Qorban: “This is your bride. Please take care of her — you are responsible for her now, please don’t beat her.”
Qorban agreed, then gripped Parwana’s arm and led her out the door. As they left, her father watching by the doorway, Parwana dug her feet into the dirt and tried to pull away — but it was no use. She was dragged to the waiting car, which slowly pulled away.
‘Absolutely cataclysmic’
Since the Taliban’s takeover, stories like Parwana’s have been on the rise.
Though marrying off children under 15 is illegal nationwide, it has been commonly practiced for years, especially in more rural parts of Afghanistan. And it has only spread since August, driven by widespread hunger and desperation.
More than half the population is facing acute food insecurity, according to a United Nations report released this week. And more than 3 million children under age 5 face acute malnutrition in the coming months. All the while, food prices are soaring, banks are running out of money and workers are going unpaid.
Nearly 677,000 people have been displaced this year due to fighting, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Many of them live in tents and huts in internal displacement camps like Parwana’s family.
“It’s absolutely cataclysmic,” said Heather Barr, associate director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. “We don’t have months or weeks to stem this emergency … we are in the emergency already.”
The problem is particularly acute for Afghan girls, who have stayed home and watched their brothers return to secondary school since the Taliban takeover. The Taliban said it is working on a plan to allow girls to return too, but have not said when that could happen or what conditions may be imposed.
The uncertainty combined with rising poverty has pushed many girls into the marriage market.
“As long as a girl is in school, her family is invested in her future,” said Barr, from Human Rights Watch. “As soon as a girl falls out of education, then suddenly it becomes much more likely that she’s going to be married off.”
And once a girl is sold as a bride, her chances of continuing an education or pursuing an independent path are close to zero.
Instead, she faces a much darker future. Without access to contraception or reproductive health services, nearly 10% of Afghan girls aged 15 to 19 give birth every year, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
Many are too young to be able to consent to sex and face complications in childbirth due to their underdeveloped bodies — pregnancy-related mortality rates for girls aged 15 to 19 are more than double the rate for women aged 20 to 24, according to UNFPA.
‘I don’t want to leave my parents’
Magul, a 10-year-old girl in neighboring Ghor province, cries every day as she prepares to be sold to a 70-year-old man to settle her family’s debts. Her parents had borrowed 200,000 Afghanis ($2,200) from a neighbor in their village — but without a job or savings, they have no way of returning the money.
The buyer had dragged Magul’s father, Ibrahim, to a Taliban prison and threatened to have him jailed for failing to repay his debt. Ibrahim, who only goes by one name, said he promised the buyer he would pay in a month. But now time is up.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ibrahim said. “Even if I don’t give him my daughters, he will take them.”
Magul washes her family’s dishes outside their home in Afghanistan’s Ghor province. Credit: CNN
Magul’s mother, Gul Afroz, feels just as helpless. “I’m praying to God these bad days pass,” she said.
Like Qorban, the buyer claimed he would not mistreat Magul and that she would simply help with cooking and cleaning at his home. But the reassurances ring hollow in the face of his threats against Magul’s family.
“I really don’t want him. If they make me go, I will kill myself,” Magul said, sobbing as she sat on the floor of her home. “I don’t want to leave my parents.”
It’s a similar situation for a nine-member family in Ghor province that is selling two daughters aged 4 and 9. The father has no job, like most in the displacement camp — but he faces even tougher odds with a disability.
He is prepared to sell the girls for 100,000 Afghanis (about $1,100) each. Zaiton, the 4-year-old, with wispy bangs and large brown eyes, said she knows why this is happening: “Because we are a poor family and we don’t have food to eat.”
Their grandmother, Rokhshana, is distraught.
“If we have food and there is someone to help us, we would never do this,” Rokhshana said through tears. “We don’t have any choice.”
International funding dried up
Local Taliban leaders in Badghis say they plan to distribute food to stop families selling their daughters. “Once we implement this plan, if they continue to sell their kids we will put them in jail,” said Mawlawai Jalaludin, a spokesperson from the Taliban’s Justice Department, without elaborating.
But the problem stretches beyond just Badghis. And as winter approaches, both the Taliban and humanitarian groups are pleading for more aid, hoping it could stem the rise in child marriages.
The Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan as the United States and its allies withdrew prompted the international community to halt development assistance — money that had been vital in propping up the country’s economy and key services.
Countries and multilateral institutions have been reluctant to renew pledges for fear of appearing to legitimize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s leaders.
With the country’s economy close to collapse, UN donors pledged more than $1 billion in humanitarian aid in September, of which $606 million would meet Afghans’ most pressing needs. But less than half those pledged funds have been received, with some member states who have not yet paid, according to a UNOCHA spokesperson.
Several of the families and experts CNN spoke with expressed frustration at the shortage of aid during the country’s direst hour.
Isabelle Moussard Carlsen, head of office at UNOCHA, emphasized that humanitarian aid workers were still on the ground, providing relief and supporting hospitals — but it’s not enough.
“By not releasing the (development) funds that they are holding from the Taliban government, it’s the vulnerable, it’s the poor, it’s these young girls who are suffering,” Carlsen said.
Barr and Carlsen acknowledged the need for world leaders to hold the Taliban accountable for human rights violations — but they warned the longer Afghanistan goes without development assistance or injected liquidity, the more families face death by starvation, and the more girls are likely to be sold.
The Taliban has also appealed for aid. “The Taliban is asking aid agencies to come back to Afghanistan and help these people,” said one Taliban director of an internal displacement camp in Ghor province. “I’m requesting the international community and aid agencies, before the winter comes, to please come and help.”
Back in the Afghan displacement camp in Badghis province, Malik is under no illusions about what the sale means for his daughter — or what the grim situation means for his family’s future.
Qorban said he will use his daughter as a worker not a bride, but Malik knows he has no control over what happens to her now.
“The old man told me, ‘I’m paying for the girl. It’s none of your business what I’m doing with her … that’s my business,'” Malik told CNN.
The ominous warning weighs heavily on him as he considers the bleak days ahead. The cold is creeping in, and snow has already begun coating parts of the country. When the money from Parwana’s sale runs out, he will be back at square one — with three daughters and a son still at home to support.
“As I can see, we don’t have a future — our future is destroyed,” he said. “I will have to sell another daughter if my financial situation doesn’t improve — probably the 2-year-old.”