Recalls and Alerts: August 5–7, 2023

Here is today’s list of food safety recalls, product withdrawals, allergy alerts and miscellaneous compliance issues. The live links will take you directly to the official recall notices and company news releases that contain detailed information for each recall and alert.

If you would like to receive automatic email alerts for all new articles posted on eFoodAlert, please submit your request using the sidebar link.

TOXIC

From Factory To Food Bowl
PET FOOD IS A RISKY BUSINESS

Enjoy the slideshow as you listen to a sample of TOXIC, narrated by the author.

“A complete and compelling account of the hidden and not-so-hidden ways the food we give our beloved pets can be contaminated.” – JoNel Aleccia, Health Reporter, Food & Nutrition, The Associated Press.

Available from all major on-line retailers, including:

United States

Allergy Alert: Day-Lee Foods Inc. recalls RESTAURANT QUALITY AT HOME Crazy Cuizine Chicken POTSTICKERS ASIAN STYLE GYOZA DUMPLINGS WITH DIPPING SAUCE (20 oz; Use by 12 14 2024) due to undeclared milk and eggs.

Public Health Alert: FSIS cautions the public not to consume USDA CHOICE BLACK ANGUS BEEF FROM ALDI, BEEF FOR CARNE PICADA (~1.5-lb. plastic tray packages; Use or Freeze by Aug. 22, 2023; Julian date 206; Time stamp between 08:43 through 09:23) due to possible foreign matter contamination (soft, clear plastic). No recall has been initiated, as the product is no longer available for purchase.

Advertisements

Europe

OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION (Norway): The Norwegian Institute of Public Health is investigating a new outbreak consisting of six confirmed cases of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli illnesses. The outbreak victims range in age from under 5 to 45; two have developed haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). A seventh possible outbreak case is under investigation. Four of the six confirmed victims live in Trøndelag. The source of the outbreak is currently unknown.

Allergy Alert (UK): Krispy Kreme recalls White Chocolate & Raspberry Summer doughnuts (4-pack; Best before 06 August 2023) due to undeclared peanuts.

Food Safety Recall (France): GAEC DES VERDAIS recalls FERME DES VERDAIS brand RACLETTE DE L ERDRE RACLETTE DE L ERDRE BIO / Organic Raw milk cheese (Sold by the slice; All lots; Best before between 09/08/2023 and 15/09/2023) due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): GAEC DES VERDAIS recalls FERME DES VERDAIS brand TOMETTE DES VERDAIS, NATURE, POIVRE, FENUGREC, AIL DES OURS / Plain, pepper, fenugreek, and wild garlic flavours of cheese (400g round, or sold by the slice; All lots; Best before between 09/08/2023 and 15/09/2023) due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): Cora recalls Nature Bio brand cuisses de poulet bio / Organic chicken legs (2/pack; Lot 2023086098; Use by 16/07/2023. 17/07/2023, 18/07/2023) due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): SILVE INTERMARCHE recalls PATURAGES brand Crème Fleurette entière / Whipping cream (38 cl; Lot 9332325; Use by 26/08/2023) due to potential bacterial contamination.

Food Safety Recall (Germany): Füngers Feinkost GmbH & Co. KG recalls GUT&GÜNSTIG Kartoffelsalat mit Sahne, Ei und eingelegten Gurken / Potato salad with cream, egg and pickled cucumber (400g; Best before 21.08.2023) due to possible foreign matter contamination (pieces of plastic).

Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands

Allergy Alert Update (Israel): A. Saiman Trade Ltd. updates its prior recall to include additional varieties and lot codes of Ile de France brand cheese products due to undeclared eggs and nuts. Please refer to the recall notice for a complete list of affected products.

TAINTED formats 3 — “Reads like a true crime novel” – Food Safety News

Interested in learning more about food safety and the history of foodborne disease outbreaks and investigations?

Click on the link to listen to a short excerpt, then follow the buy links to add a digital, print or audio copy to your personal library.

Chapter 6. Birth of a Pathogen

TAINTED is available in digital format from all major on-line retailers. Press the button to go directly to your preferred digital bookstore.

Amazon

Apple

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Chapters/Indigo

Advertisements

After Netflix Poisoned – What would I do with a Food Safety Magic Wand?

This Op-Ed by William Marler first appeared on the Marler Blog and is reposted here with the author’s permission.

Over two months ago, while watching the premiere of the documentary, “Poisoned,” at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC, I got thinking again about how little in the past 30 years I feel I have moved the needle on food safety – pathogens and certainly, human nutrition. Now that “Poisoned” is up on the Netflix platform, it has become the most watched documentary in the world – at least for the last few days.

The real issues to me is how do we engage the food industry, policy makers, academics and most importantly consumers, to focus on driving the numbers down on the pathogens that kill us quickly and the products that kill us over time.

I will focus on pathogens as I have for the last 30 plus years. I will leave it to some very smart people who are rightly concerned about the millions of us who become sick and die due to inadequate nutrition – especially the millions of illnesses and deaths due to heart disease, diabetes and obesity caused by ultra-processed foods, salt, sugar, and fat.

There is so much to do, and the list is long. So, what would I do with a Food Safety Magic Wand on day one?

Vaccinate. The first thing I would do is mandate that all food service workers be vaccinated against hepatitis A. Perhaps to some, not the most pressing food safety issue, but it is forefront of my mind. In the past few months, I finished up litigation around a hepatitis A outbreak involving one ill food service work who infected nearly 50 people, hospitalizing most, killing four and causing two liver transplants. With regret, I forced a family-owned restaurant chain to file for bankruptcy. All of this could have been prevented by a safe vaccine that has been around for decades. It is time for the restaurant industry and the CDC to step up.

Investigate. Invest in public health surveillance over human pathogens, like, Listeria, E. coli and Salmonella, etc. A dirty truth is that most culture-confirmed illnesses are never attributable to a food source, so people never know what sickened or killed them. Not because the source was not food, but because we fail to invest adequate resources in the epidemiologists that investigate illnesses and track those illnesses to the cause. Tracking illnesses to the cause gets tainted product off the market and helps us all understand what products and producers to avoid. We need to continue to invest in the science of whole genome sequencing, so we know with certainty which pathogens are causing which illnesses. Foodborne illness epidemiology helps us understand the root cause of an outbreak and helps prevent the next one from happening at all.
Relegate. Allow public health officials access, especially during an outbreak investigation, to all areas around farms that grow fruits and vegetables. It is long past time to allow investigators access to neighboring cattle, dairy, chicken, or hog operations that spill billions of deadly pathogens into the environment, via air or water. We need to think of our growing regions as an integrated system and that all sectors responsible need to play a role. Access allows investigators to understand the likely cause of an outbreak, and again, what can be done to prevent the next one.
Advocate. Make all pathogens that can sicken or kill us adulterants. In 1994 Mike Taylor making E. coliO157:H7 and adulterant has saved countless lives and has saved the beef industry from my lawsuits. We can do the same for all food producers, especially chicken, turkey, and pork. Remember, in the 1990’s nearly all the lawsuits I filed were E. coli cases linked to ground beef. Today that is zero. Think about it.
Educate. Give everyone a thermometer and provide better education to middle and high school teachers and students around food safety and human nutrition policy, not in a dry, technical way, but by sharing engaging history, microbiology, patient stories, and case studies. We need to teach how and why our food can be unsafe and what consumers can do about it.
Consolidate. Finally, make a single federal agency out of USDA/FSIS, FDA, and the food safety parts of CDC, NOAA, and EPA, to oversee food safety and human nutrition. Making food safety and human nutrition its own agency would help increase governmental accountability, close regulatory loopholes, facilitate the collection and sharing of information and facilitate critical change. I might have a suggestion for someone to run it.

With the CDC estimating 48,000,000 are sickened each year, 125,000 hospitalized, and 3,000 die from food, preventing pathogenic foodborne illness is no simple matter. And, if you consider the millions that are impacted by the lack of adequate and safe nutrition, we have a lot to do. However, it can be done, and the six ideas above are a small start.

“Doing anything is better than doing nothing,” my Marine drill sergeant father used to say. He used to require my brother and I to make our beds every morning and bounce quarters on them. For the longest time I thought this was punishment. But it was not punishment, it was accomplishment, that you could build on for the rest of the day. Doing “little” things, like the six things above, are accomplishments. Doing them starts a process that will continue to make all our lives just a little bit safer.

Bill Marler’s work as a lawyer and food safety advocate is highlighted in the Netflix Documentary “Poisoned” now streaming.

See: “Poisoned”: The Dirty Truth About Your Food | Official Trailer | Netflix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZcyMgdWmPg.

Recalls and Alerts: August 3–4, 2023

If you would like to receive automatic email alerts for all new articles posted on eFoodAlert, please submit your request using the sidebar link.

TOXIC

From Factory To Food Bowl
PET FOOD IS A RISKY BUSINESS

Enjoy the slideshow as you listen to a sample of TOXIC, narrated by the author.

Available from all major on-line retailers, including:

United States

Food Safety Recall: Raw Farm, LLC recalls Raw Farm Cheddar Cheese (16-oz blocks; Lot 20230517-1; Best by 03/16/2024) due to possible Salmonella contamination.

Advertisements

Canada

Food Safety Recall: Les Pêcheries Ouellet inc. (Kamouraska, QC) recalls ANGUILLE A LA PROVENCALE / Provence-style eel (150g; Sold up to 1 August 2023) due to lack of correct storage temperature instruction on the product label.

Advertisements

Europe

OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION UPDATE (Denmark): Statens Serum Institut reports that the outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis infections now comprises 15 confirmed cases in 5 different regions of the country. The source of the outbreak is still under investigation.

OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION UPDATE (Sweden): Swedish public health authorities report that they have now confirmed 16 cases of listeriosis due to a single Listeria monocytogenes variant in an outbreak that is believed to be linked to cold-smoked or “buried” salmon.

Allergy Alert (Belgium): AFSCA recalls Rewe Bio brand Erdnussbutter Creamy et Erdnussbutter Crunchy / Creamy peanut butter and Crunchy peanut butter (250g; All Expiration dates up to 05/01/2025) due to undeclared cashews and almonds.

Allergy Alert (Denmark): Salling Group recalls Salling Cordon Bleu (250g; Best before 05-08-2023) due to undeclared wheat, barley, milk, whey protein, and egg.

Allergy Alert (Luxembourg): HMF Food Production GmbH & Co. KG recalls Rewe Bio brand Erdnussbutter Creamy et Erdnussbutter Crunchy / Creamy peanut butter and Crunchy peanut butter (250g; All Expiration dates up to 06/01/2025) due to undeclared cashews and almonds.

Allergy Alert (UK): Interstoq recalls Chocomel (300 ml; Best before 07 November 2023 and 29 November 2023) due to undeclared milk.

Food Safety Recall (France): LDC SABLE recalls Le Gaulois brand Cuisses de poulet (1 kg; Lot 3013015671; Use by 20/07/2023, 21/07/2023, 22/07/2023, 23/07/2023) due to possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): MAURER TEMPE ALSACE recalls TEMPE brand Les gendarmes 1 paires / Pair of sausages (120g; Lot 23177; Use by 25/08/2023) due to possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): MAURER TEMPE ALSACE recalls TEMPE brand Les gendarmes 1 paires / Pair of sausages (120g; Lot 23198; Use by 15/09/2023) due to possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): SUPERMARCHES MATCH recalls CPNP (Cuisinés Par Nos Pros) brand SAUCISSE DE MORTEAU – LENTILLES / Morteau sausage with lentils (Lots 0008951207 & 0009008784; Use by 30/07/2023 & 06/08/2023, respectively) due to improper manufacturing procedure, possibly resulting in increased risk of bacterial growth.

Food Safety Recall (France): NAIADE INTERMARCHE recalls FARCE A LEGUMES / Vegetable stuffing (All lots) due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Food Safety Recall (France): BRETZELS MORICETTES MFP recalls POULAILLON brand VOLAILLE BASQUAISE / Basque-style poultry (Lot 120523; Use by 27/07/2023) due to Salmonella contamination.

Food Safety Recall (Germany): BLM Prod.- u. Vertriebsges. mbH & Co. KG recalls Le Gusto brand Bolognese Gewürz / Bolognese seasoning (35g; Lot 30F01; Best before 01.06.2025) due to foreign matter contamination (glass).

Food Safety Recall (Germany): dm-drogerie Markt GmbH + Co. KG recalls dmBio Himbeer-Reiswaffeln ab dem 8. Monat / Organic raspberry rice cakes, for infants over 8 months (35g; Lot NL 157; Best before 04.06.2024) due to possible aflatoxin contamination.

Food Safety Recall (Germany): Wilhelm Brandenburg GmbH & CO.oHG recalls Mühlenhof Delikatess Hähnchenbrustfilet mit Paprika – gepökelt, gebacken / chicken breast fillet with paprika – pickled, baked (150g; Lots 30123 & 30223; Best before 13.08.2023, 14.08.2023, 15.08.2023, 16.08.2023) due to foreign matter contamination (transparent plastic pieces).

Food Safety Recall (Germany): Wilhelm Brandenburg GmbH & CO.oHG recalls ja! Delikatess Hähnchenbrustfilet mit Paprika – gepökelt, gebacken / chicken breast fillet with paprika – pickled, baked (150g; Lots 30123 & 30223; Best before 14.08.2023 & 15.08.2023) due to foreign matter contamination (transparent plastic pieces).

Food Safety Recall (Hungary): dm-drogerie markt Kft. recalls dmBio Himbeer-Reiswaffeln ab dem 8. Monat / Organic raspberry rice cakes, for infants over 8 months (35g; Lot NL 157; Best before 04.06.2024) due to possible aflatoxin contamination.

Food Safety Recall (Italy): COMUNITÀ SAN PATRIGNANO SOCIETÀ COOPERATIVA SOCIALE recalls PANE INTEGRALE A LIEVITAZIONE NATURALE / Whole grain bread with natural leavening (1 kg loaf; Lots 232101 – 232091; Best before 05/08/2023 – 02/08/2023) due to possible foreign matter contamination.

Food Safety Recall (Italy): MARTELLI F.LLI S.p.A. recalls ESSELUNGA Salamella Mantovana; Verzini Suino / Salamella Mantovana; Pork Verzini sausages (Variable weights; Lot 230724) due to possible foreign matter contamination (plastic).

Food Safety Recall (Italy): RIVALTAFOOD SPA recalls CACIO DEL CASARO CHEESTA’ FORMAGGIO A PASTA SEMICOTTA / Semi-cooked cheese (Variable weight, ~250g; Lots 322812- 342822- 332916- 343013; Best before 10/08/2023, 12/08/2023, 18/08/2023, 26/08/2023) due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands

Allergy Alert (Israel): A. Saiman Trade Ltd recalls Ile de France Montaver sliced cheese (150g; Expiration dates 11/21/2023, 10/21/2023, 09/03/2023, 08/08/2023) due to undeclared egg and nuts.

Food Safety Recall (Israel): M. E. Shokis Ltd. recalls Pasak time vanilla nougat mousse cake (700 cc; Expiration date 09/17/23) due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination.

Australia and New Zealand

Allergy Alert (New Zealand): Life Health Foods NZ Ltd recalls Naked Kitchen brand Japanese Vegetable Curry (500g; Best before 05.09.23) due to undeclared milk.

Interested in learning more about food safety and the history of foodborne disease outbreaks and investigations?

Click on the link to listen to a short excerpt, then follow the buy links to add a digital, print or audio copy to your personal library.

Chapter 6. Birth of a Pathogen