Deli meats and cheese. Chicken nuggets. Cucumbers, cantaloupe, eggs, apple juice.
What sounds like a family grocery list is something less wholesome: a partial list of contaminated food items that the U.S. government has recalled from store shelves this year. Tainted with everything from potentially deadly bacteria to bits of metal, the food has sickened hundreds of people and sent dozens to the hospital.
But it also has a consumer watchdog group sounding the alarm about lax government oversight of the nation’s commercial agriculture and food processing systems, industries that take in hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit, says the scale of food recalls and the popularity of the products on the lists so far this year — including Boar’s Head Provisions, a major player in the nation’s lunch meat industry — means more people are affected by the tainted product. And experts say the outcomes of people consuming contaminated food, including severe illnesses and even death, are getting worse.
“[It] looks like we’re on track to have a higher number of deaths this year because we have nine (recalls) from the Boar’s Head and two from the Diamond Shruumz,” a brand of low-dose psychedelic mushrooms sold in vape shops, says Teresa Murray, USPIRG’s consumer watchdog director. “And we have a new cantaloupe recall and a new egg recall, both of which could get really bad. And we have 3 ½ months to go this year.”
Food System Vulnerabilities
Food recalls in the United States are nothing new: according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, recalls due to contamination, labeling errors, and undeclared allergens happen dozens of times each year. After plunging to 20 or so recalls per year during the three years of the pandemic, the number of recalls shot up dramatically in the last few years.
Reasons for the recalls have included undisclosed allergens as well as contamination by bacterial pathogens, including salmonella, listeria monocytogenes and variations of e. coli. While they can trigger vomiting, diarrhea and other gastric illnesses in healthy people, the pathogens are dangerous to children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems.
Late last week, the Food and Drug Administration announced a recall on eggs that have since been linked to a salmonella outbreak. Milo’s Poultry Farms, LLC. of Bonduel, WI, recalled all of its “Milo’s Poultry Farms” and “Tony’s Fresh Market” branded eggs due to Salmonella contamination.
As of September 6, The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the outbreak and have warned consumers to throw away the product. No one has died from this contamination, but 65 people were reported ill and dozens were hospitalized.
Food Recalls Increasing
It’s part of a disturbing trend: the number of food recalls recorded in the U.S. last year was already the highest since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to PIRG’s April 2023 report. That report found that in 2023, food and beverage recalls nationwide climbed by 8%, with meat, poultry and egg recalls at their highest levels since 2020.
“Most problems with food should be easy to avoid. Food producers and packagers just need to focus more on cleanliness and disclose allergens that could make people sick or kill them,” Murray says. “[W]e are seeing an increase in the severity of illnesses and deaths, and the popularity of the products affected. It catches our attention when it’s something a lot of people routinely eat, such as cucumbers, apple juice, cinnamon and lunchmeat.”
Meanwhile, the Boar’s Head recall of meat tainted by listeria is particularly vexing in the $76 billion lunchmeat market.
One of the most popular brands of deli meat, retailers and sandwich shops nationwide — including Walmart and Target grocery stores — sold contaminated Boar’s Head products. Although it received widespread attention, it wasn’t the first time the company had food safety issues.
Failed Safety Inspections
Between January 2022 and August 2023, Boars Head racked up 84 USDA violations at its processing plant in Jarratt, Va. Inspectors repeatedly found mold, mildew and insects throughout the site, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture records.
Since the deli meat recall was announced last week, grocers nationwide have pulled Boar’s Head meats and cheeses from shelves. But by the end of August, 9 people died and 57 were hospitalized after consuming listeria-contaminated Boar’s Head products, according to the CDC.
Some of the tainted deli products have sell-by dates ranging from July 29 to this coming October but that doesn’t mean the meat is safe. Consumers have been warned not to eat recalled food products and to clean their refrigerators after throwing away the product.
Meanwhile, Perdue Foods last month announced a recall of more than 167,000 pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat chicken breast nuggets and chicken tender products that the company says “may be contaminated with foreign material” — specifically, metal.
The problem was discovered when consumers found metal wire embedded in the product and complained to Perdue, which in turn notified the USDA, according to the agency’s Food Safety Inspection Service.
While Boar’s Head and Perdue recalls made headlines, the tainted-food problem wasn’t limited to meat products. This spring, the USDA announced two separate recalls of contaminated cucumbers after hundreds of consumers were sickened and hospitalized.
The first recall was for products contaminated with salmonella, leading to 551 illnesses and 155 people hospitalized. The second cucumber recall is reportedly due to listeria contamination, but authorities haven’t yet traced it to any illnesses.
Contaminated foods led to more than 1,100 illnesses last year. Each year, about 1 in 6 people in the U.S. gets sick from eating contaminated food.
“We see more severe outbreaks that last longer in part because our recall notification system in this country stinks,” says Murray. “Grocery stores don’t have to notify customers. Even if they did, how would they reach everyone who bought that product? They can only contact the customers whose information they have.”
Grocers do post recall notices in stores but Murray notes those only help if a consumer returns to that store and happens to see the notice. With more people shopping online it’s easy to miss a notice.
Using the free Food Recalls & Alerts phone app (Apple and Android) will allow consumers to get FDA, USDA and pet food recall notifications on their phones.
Additional Information
- A complete list of retailers that sold the recalled Boar’s Head products, is available here.
- Foodsafety.gov
- U.S. PIRG’s tips for consumers
