Across fifty years, blueberries have been implicated in only two E. coli events — and in the older of the two, the vehicle was never resolved between blueberries and strawberries. The fruit’s low surface pH is hostile to E. coli survival, which helps explain the scarcity. The table below leads with those E. coli events, then folds in the other documented blueberry-linked outbreaks.
| Year | Location | Pathogen | Vehicle | Cases | Primary / key citation |
| 2006 | Massachusetts, USA | E. coli O26 (STEC) | Strawberries or blueberries (vehicle unresolved) | 6 ill, 1 hospitalized | Food Safety News (2011); Curtis et al., Foods 9(11):1558 (2020) |
| 2026 | 8 US states (Publix / GreenWise) | E. coli O145:H28 (STEC) | Frozen organic blueberries (Chile-sourced) | 12 confirmed ill (May 11–Jun 5, 2026) | Food Safety News (Jul 4, 2026) |
| 1984 | Connecticut, USA | Listeria monocytogenes | Fresh blueberries | Not specified in review sources | Ryser & Marth (1999), via PMC review; Curtis et al. (2020) |
| 2002 | New Zealand | Hepatitis A virus | Raw blueberries | Multiple; food-handler / groundwater source | Calder et al., Epidemiol. Infect. 131(1):745–751 (2003) |
| 2009 | Multistate, USA (states not specified) | Salmonella Muenchen | Fresh blueberries | 14 ill (June 2009) | CDC Foodborne Outbreak Online Database (NORS) — no standalone publication |
| 2010 | Minnesota, USA (grower traced to Georgia) | Salmonella Newport | Fresh blueberries | 6 ill (case-control P = 0.02) | Miller et al., J. Food Prot. 76(5):762–769 (2013) |
| Various | Multiple (co-vehicle in mixed-berry events) | Norovirus | Frozen blueberries | Rarely sole vehicle; usually mixed-berry | Curtis et al., Foods 9(11):1558 (2020) |