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Column: industry Tag: CHLOE JAMESNOV Published: 2024-11-21 13:24 Source: www.mashed.com Author: CHLOE JAMESNOV. 17
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When the Plymouth settlers and the Wampanoag sat down for the first Thanksgiving feast, we doubt they paid any mind to the corporate food recalls that could one day plague the dishes on their table. A few centuries later, things are a bit different. If history has taught the food industry anything, it's that everything and anything on sale in grocery stores can be recalled in a food safety panic — and unfortunately, that includes turkey.
Like all meat products, turkey has been embroiled in its fair share of urgent recalls. This usually comes down to some kind of contamination, from harmful bacteria such as salmonella and listeria to unexpected foreign objects like plastic. The more processed the turkey — or, in other words, the more time it spends in a production line — the higher the odds of contamination. On extremely rare occasions, this contamination can even prove to have fatal consequences. From turkey breast to ready-to-eat turkey products, here are some of the most major recalls to hit the industry over the years.
Multiple BrucePac turkey products (2024)
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Listeria has a track record for wreaking havoc on the food industry. Technically known as listeria monocytogenes, this bacteria can cause an illness known as listeriosis. While typical symptoms include the likes of nausea, fever, diarrhea, and vomiting, it can have a more serious impact on the vulnerable and even be fatal — hence why BrucePac moved so quickly in May 2024 after realizing that several of its ready-to-eat poultry products could have been contaminated.
Having produced ready-to-eat turkey (and chicken) products for the likes of Aldi, Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, and Kroger, BrucePac had to move fast. The recall was large, with the comprehensive list of affected products compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spanning over 400 pages. Fewer turkey products were included on the list than chicken, but popular snack products such as Trader Joe's Turkey Club Wrap and Walmart's Marketside Cobb Salad with Turkey & Bacon unfortunately made the cut.
Several schools also received potentially contaminated products, with 11,765,285 pounds recalled in total. Luckily, no illnesses were reported to the USDA in relation to any poultry products produced by BrucePac, but there's no way of saying what could have happened had it not carried out such a thorough recall.
Salm Partners LLC turkey kielbasa (2024)
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In January 2024, Salm Partners LLC got the New Year off to a bang by initiating a recall of 133,039 pounds of ready-to-eat turkey kielbasa, sold under the name Parkview Turkey Polska Kielbasa. With the kielbasa — a kind of smoked sausage that heralds from Poland — already distributed nationwide, it was a huge undertaking. However, it was also much needed, with multiple customers having already complained that their sausages were contaminated.
This time around, it wasn't bacteria that worked its way into the turkey. Instead, it was fragments of bone — something that has no place in kielbasa, or most foods for that matter. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has strict guidelines on how much bone can be left in poultry products, only allowing particles that measure a maximum of 1.5 millimeters by 2 millimeters. As per the FSIS, one of the complaints came from a customer who suffered a minor oral injury after biting into one of these bone fragments in their sausage. To prevent the same thing happening again, anyone who found the sausage in their kitchen was encouraged to return it for a refund ASAP.
Jennie-O turkey meatballs (2023)
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Back in April 2023, customers who purchased Jennie-O fully cooked turkey sausage patties were in for a surprise when they opened the packaging. They'd actually purchased mislabeled frozen turkey meatballs, which wouldn't be a major problem unless you had a soy allergy (or, you know, just had a passionate hatred of turkey meatballs).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) got to quick work recalling the Abbyland Foods-produced meatballs. In total, it's thought that roughly 11,800 pounds of meatballs were mislabeled. That equaled an awful lot of undeclared soy protein concentrate. With soy among the top eight allergens in the U.S. – and especially prevalent in children, most of whom grow out of the allergy by the age of 10 — the FSIS encouraged customers to double-check any turkey products in their home while also warning institutions that may have bought the product in bulk to do the same.
Butterball ground turkey (2021)
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Butterball is one of the biggest names in the turkey biz, to the point that it even operates a hotline (the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line) come Thanksgiving to help people with their turkey woes. But even with its status, it's still faced a handful of challenging recalls over the years.
In October 2021, Butterball was forced to initiate a recall of approximately 14,107 pounds of ground turkey products. Both Butterball all-natural ground turkey and Kroger ground turkey were pulled from grocery store shelves after it was discovered that they may contain small pieces of blue plastic. There were no reports of anybody actually finding this blue plastic in their turkey, never mind suffering any kind of plastic-related consequences, but in situations where extraneous materials may pose a safety risk, it's always better to be safe than sorry.
With the recall coming one month before Thanksgiving — aka what we can only assume is prime time for Butterball business — it's no surprise that the company was also quick to stress that this was an anomaly. "The health and safety of the people who enjoy our products is a top priority for Butterball, and we work hard to ensure our product safety program meets or exceeds government regulations," Butterball told CNN Business. "It is important to note the current investigation indicates this does not represent a food safety concern according to FDA guidance."
Conagra Brands turkey bowls (2020)
Healthy Choice
Conagra Brands is no stranger to food recalls. In the 2000s, it faced a string of food safety scandals, from being forced to recall 19 million pounds of ground beef contaminated with E. coli to producing peanut butter linked to over 600 cases of salmonella poisoning. A decade later, Conagra Brands undertook yet another hefty recall — this time, of its frozen turkey and chicken bowl products.
About 276,872 pounds of these bowls were withdrawn from the market. The reason? Rocks. Multiple customers had complained to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) that they had found small rocks in their meals. As a result, the turkey sausage and egg white scramble variety of Healthy Choice Power Bowls was pulled from stores nationwide, with customers also encouraged by the FSIS to check their freezers for any meals that may potentially come with this unexpected, potentially teeth-cracking side.
Butterball ground turkey, again (2019)
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Two years before blue plastic kickstarted a Butterball ground turkey recall, the brand undertook a much more dramatic task. In March 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that six ground turkey products produced by Butterball were potentially contaminated with salmonella.
While three of these products were Butterball's own brand, two were sold under different brand names: Kroger and Food Lion. In total, this brought the recall to a whopping 39 tons — or 78,164 pounds — of raw ground turkey products. The FSIS reported that a fraction of this number had been donated to food banks in Minnesota, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts.
The recall was pretty urgent, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection had already linked the products to an outbreak of salmonellosis (aka the illness contracted by consuming salmonella bacteria) affecting five people across two states. Like listeria, salmonella primarily causes symptoms such as diarrhea, stomach cramps, and a fever, but it can also cause more serious illness in vulnerable people and, as per the CDC, causes roughly 420 deaths in the U.S. every year.
Jennie-O ground turkey (2018 - 2019)
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A salmonella outbreak struck in 2018 that was quickly traced back to Jennie-O ground turkey. The company recalled 164,210 pounds of raw ground turkey products, with all but one (Stater Bros ground turkey) sold under the Jennie-O name.
By the time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development had made a clear link between the outbreak and Jennie-O products, the outbreak was already in full swing. Altogether, 216 people contracted salmonellosis across 38 states. In fact, it's thought that the outbreak actually started back in November 2017, with 22 cases also reported in Canada.
Steve Lykken, Jennie-O Turkey Store's president at the time, insisted that the company had made operational changes over the years to reduce the risk of salmonella. For example, it had started vaccinating turkeys to protect them from the bacteria. However, he also claimed that it was an industry-wide issue. "We know the issue of salmonella isn't specific to us," he said (via CNN).
Prestage Foods ground turkey (2017)
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Multiple meat recalls have hit Publix in the past, including a mass turkey recall in October 2017. Once again, this affected ground turkey. One Publix worker had noticed that some packages seemed to contain metal shavings and contacted the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), sparking a recall that ultimately affected four products manufactured by Prestage Foods: two varieties of Publix ground turkey and one apiece from Fit & Active and Weis Markets.
Approximately 38,475 pounds of meat were pulled from the market in nine different states. While there was never any specific explanation as to exactly how the metal ended up in said turkey, Prestage Foods had contacted the USDA in September to report that some kind of contamination likely took place when workers at its plant were sanitizing processing equipment. Luckily, thanks to the quick response (and that eagle-eyed Publix worker), no injuries were reported due to metal-laden ground turkey. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service still classed the recall as Class II, warning that it was "a health hazard situation where there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product."
Michigan Turkey Producers roasted turkey (2016)
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Extraneous materials seem to have a sneaky habit of making their way into turkey. In October 2016, it was an unidentified black material (mysterious, we know) that somehow popped up in oven roasted turkey manufactured by Michigan Turkey Producers. First alerted to the fact by a customer complaint, the company soon issued a recall for approximately 54,011 pounds of its products.
The products in question had been shipped to a distribution center in Florida, as well as food services in Florida and Puerto Rico. While nobody wants to find an unidentified black material in their sandwich meat, the good news is that nobody was actually injured (at least, nobody reported any injuries) as a result of contamination. Anyone who may have purchased products with the affected lot codes was encouraged to check and throw out any products regardless, with the United States Department of Agriculture marking this as a Class I recall, meaning "there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death."
Cargill ground turkey (2011)
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In August 2011, the Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation undertook what was then the third-biggest recall in the U.S. A staggering total of about 36 million pounds of ground turkey (yes, again) was recalled after a strain of salmonella that proved particularly resistant to antibiotics sickened 136 people in 34 states.
While the outbreak itself is believed to have begun in February of that year, it was only in July that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a public health alert warning people to take care when handling raw turkey and ensure that it's cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit (with salmonella bacteria dying between 145 and 165 degrees Fahrenheit). A few weeks later, the outbreak was linked to the death of a man in Sacramento, at which point Cargill issued a recall for multiple turkey products sold at stores nationwide. It later emerged that the FSIS had found salmonella in Cargill ground turkey all the way back in March but apparently didn't have evidence to justify a recall until months later.
In response to the outbreak, Cargill temporarily shuttered its processing plant in Springfield, Arkansas for a week. In September, the same strain of salmonella was again found in the ground turkey, forcing yet another plant closure and a smaller recall. Cargill went on to conduct mass layoffs, and later introduced "the most aggressive and advanced sampling and monitoring program in the poultry industry" (via Meat Poultry).
HoneyBaked Foods Inc. cooked turkey products (2006)
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Listeria was the root cause of a recall by HoneyBaked Foods Inc. in November 2006. The company — which had sold the potentially contaminated turkey through its catalog, website, and four The Honey Baked Ham stores in Ohio — warned that all 3-pound packages of its cooked turkey breast (plus packages of its whole ham and glazed half ham) were at risk.
This recall was initially voluntary but soon became government-mandated. Nearly 47,000 pounds of meat were affected altogether and had been distributed nationwide before the recall, with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency also issuing a health hazard alert. In an unfortunate twist of fate, the recall came a day after Thanksgiving, when plenty of turkey and ham had likely already been consumed. On the bright side, no reported illnesses were linked to HoneyBaked Foods meat, giving this listeria recall story one of the happier endings.
LSK Smoked Turkey Products, Inc. turkey wings and drumsticks (2005)
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As you've probably already realized, listeria is an all too common threat to the food industry. It doesn't help that listeria bacteria actually thrives in cold temperatures, meaning all that meat you so safely secure in the refrigerator or freezer is still at risk. LSK Smoked Turkey Products, Inc. had to grapple with that reality in 2005 when routine testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) found positive results for listeria monocytogenes.
The New York-based company went on to recall 39,000 pounds of its turkey wings and drumsticks. By this point, they had already been distributed across Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. This was another case of preemptive action that may have prevented any actual illness; no cases were linked to LSK Smoked Turkey Products, Inc., once again proving the importance of routine testing and speedy recalls.
International Trading Company canned turkey (2004)
Phoenicia Specialty Foods
Processed meat doesn't exactly have the best reputation. While it's often cheaper than its non-processed counterparts, consuming too much processed meat comes with its own health risks. The process of, well, processing the meat also opens up more windows of opportunity to contamination. In November 2004, the thing that sparked a minor panic for International Trading Company was a complaint from one of its wholesale customers that some of its canned turkey luncheon meat was possibly under-processed.
The risk here was that meat that was supposed to be pre-cooked wasn't done so thoroughly enough to be safely consumed. As a result, the Texas-based company started recalling its Al Haloub Cow, Turkey Luncheon Meat. This recall started in Puerto Rico, where nearly 11,000 pounds of canned turkey were pulled from distribution. A week later, however, the recall expanded to cover the U.S. The International Trading Company withdrew over 84,000 pounds of its 12-ounce cans of turkey from California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Texas, plus the Netherlands.
No reported illnesses were linked to the turkey, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) still flagged the recall as a high health risk. That meant that the product presented a danger of having serious health consequences, or even death.
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