At McKinley High School, Cafeteria Manager Mitch Arnold was given warning.
"This is our storage area where we keep our dry products," says Arnold. "Canned fruits, spices and what not."
Anything containing peanut-based products would have to go.
"I was concerned, because we still had some peanut-butter in our inventory," says Arnold.
The Department of Education gave an internal memo to all public schools in the state. Discontinue ordering and using peanut-based products on school campuses.
"The influx was not in the peanut-butter itself, but in the supply of everything that contained peanut-butter, just wanted to make sure the word was out," says Glenna Owens, DOE School Food Serves Director.
The DOE says they were alerted by the FDA. As more than a thousand peanut products -- from energy bars to ice cream to cookies and crackers -- were being recalled.
"And the list was growing," says Owens. "We wanted to make sure everyone was aware."
"Whatever we did have when we discovered problems the mainland was having, we discarded it and got it out of our inventory," says Arnold.
"It was concerting, so many things contain peanut-butter that we don't know about," says Ron Okamura, McKinley High School Principal.
And the concern was not just in school lunches, but in after school programs and culinary classes.
The DOE says the move was an added safety measure. Public school menus already limit peanut-based products over allergy concerns.
"Yes that was a double check, yes," says Owens.
"Better safe than sorry cause, it only takes one student to get sick to get really sick or die. No that's not happening here," says Arnold.
Since November, there have been three known cases of salmonella illness in Hawaii. But the Department of Health says none of those cases have been linked to the nationwide outbreak.
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