Salmonella in a salad topper, metal contamination in a Costco supplement, and a dog food Listeria notice that just jumped from 60 lots to more than 180 — Wednesday is doing a lot. This is Food Recall Watch. Three recalls, three different ways to make them hard to identify, and at least one where the lag between the first complaint and the public notice is going to annoy you. We’re going to walk the Kroger crouton salmonella recall through the 17-state footprint and the exact lot codes, then check the one printed bottle code on the Kirkland Women’s 50-plus multivitamin, and then update the Raaw Energy dog food timeline — starting now. Leigh Cook, writing in The Cooldown:
According to Newsweek, Sugar Foods LLC has recalled certain Kroger-branded cheese garlic croutons after a milk powder ingredient raised contamination concerns, as noted in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration notice. The recall covers specific lots of Kroger Homestyle Cheese Garlic Croutons in 5-ounce pouches bearing UPC code 0 11110 81353 4.
Sugar Foods LLC has recalled Kroger Homestyle Cheese Garlic Croutons — five-ounce pouches, UPC 0 11110 81353 4, best-by dates from February 17 through April 7, 2027. They were distributed in 17 states between March 7 and April 7. And the contamination trail goes upstream through a milk powder ingredient: California Dairies supplied it to a seasoning maker, the seasoning maker supplied Sugar Foods, and Sugar Foods supplies Kroger. The box says Kroger Homestyle. California Dairies never appears on the label. That’s the part that keeps biting shoppers — the label hides the source. California Dairies powder also set off the Blackstone Parmesan Ranch recall, same upstream ingredient, different finished product, totally different brand on the shelf. Two dry-goods salmonella notices in the same week from the same powder source, and unless you dig into the FDA notice, there’s no way to connect the dots from the pantry side. The crouton tests came back negative, so Kroger is recalling on precaution — but with 17 states and those best-by dates, this is probably still in people’s homes. To be precise on the geography: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin are named — seven of at least seventeen states. If you’re in the Kroger footprint and you bought croutons in the last couple of months, check that UPC and that best-by window before your next salad. This one's from EatingWell:
There’s an active recall on supplements sold at Costco, according to the company’s website.1 This is due to a foreign matter contamination. The bottles being recalled are Kirkland Signature Women 50+ multivitamin and minerals tablets. The affected product contains code "5J46568W7" and expiration date"FE/2028" printed on the neck of the bottles.
Kirkland Signature Women 50-plus multivitamin and minerals tablets — Canada-only recall, issued by Vita Health Products after loose metal pieces were found in a bottle. The one identifier you need is the printed code 5J46568W7 on the neck of the bottle, with expiration FE/2028. It was sold at Canadian Costco warehouses or on Costco.ca from February through May of this year. And this one is different from a food ingredient recall: the contamination is loose metal pieces inside a supplement bottle, so you’re looking at a manufacturing or packaging line failure, not an upstream ingredient problem. Vita Health Products says it came from one bottle, with no injuries reported. If the code matches, return it for a refund or dispose of it. MassLive writes:
More than 180 lots of Raaw Energy dog food have been recalled after several reported pet illnesses. The recall was initiated after a pet illness was reported to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture in January 2026. The FDA has since received additional consumer complaints of illness in animals that consumed the products.
Raaw Energy dog food — more than 180 lots recalled, and the footprint now covers nine states: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Follow-up testing confirmed Listeria, Salmonella, and Campylobacter jejuni. The recall scope now reaches everything manufactured between July 17 and December 23 of 2025, plus one additional lot from March 31, 2026. Here’s the timeline worth slowing down for: the trigger was one pet illness reported to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture in January 2026. Then FDA got additional consumer complaints, testing confirmed the pathogens, and the recall expanded on May 22 after New Jersey flagged more concerns. Monday we were at 60-plus lots centered on Pennsylvania. Today it’s 180-plus, and the origin point goes back four months. January to May. One report lands at Connecticut Ag in January, and pet owners feeding from those 180-plus lots between January and the May 22 expansion had no public signal that anything was wrong. Dry pet food sits in a garage bin for weeks — same low-turnover problem as a chest freezer — so those bags could absolutely still be in homes right now. And just to flag the human-health piece: even if your dog isn’t showing symptoms, the reporting says asymptomatic animals can still transmit Listeria to humans through saliva and feces. So “my dog seems fine” is not a clean bill of health here. Okay, I get why you’d worry about raw chicken sitting in your fridge, but croutons? How does salmonella show up in something bone-dry like a seasoning blend or a shelf-stable snack? It’s a really common misconception that dry means safe, and this crouton recall is a perfect example of why that’s wrong. Per the FDA notice, Sugar Foods LLC voluntarily recalled certain lots of Kroger Homestyle Cheese Garlic Croutons because a dry milk powder in the seasoning blend tested positive for potential salmonella contamination. That milk powder came from California Dairies, Inc., was handled by a seasoning supplier called Solina USA, and had already been recalled in April before anyone tied it to the croutons. So the contamination moved through at least two ingredient suppliers before it ever reached the finished product on a grocery shelf. Food scientists explain the mechanics pretty well: salmonella can go essentially dormant in low-moisture environments — nuts, powders, dried seasonings — and survive for months or even years, per CBC reporting on a parallel pistachio recall tied to the same dynamic. It isn’t multiplying the way it would in raw meat, but it’s not neutralized either. Once that dry ingredient gets incorporated into food and somebody eats it, salmonella can reactivate in the digestive tract. The Kroger croutons were sold across 17 states, and the FDA notice is what shoppers should check for lot codes and best-by dates. So the crouton itself isn’t the original source — it’s the contaminated ingredient upstream. Does that mean once one ingredient gets flagged, a whole chain of finished products can suddenly be at risk? Exactly, and that’s the consumer-facing takeaway: when a raw ingredient like a dry milk powder or a seasoning blend gets recalled, watch for a wave of downstream product recalls, because that same ingredient can show up in croutons, snack mixes, pork rind seasonings — multiple finished foods at once, as we’ve seen in recent FDA notices. If you bought Kroger Homestyle Cheese Garlic Croutons recently, the FDA recall notice is the guide here — check the lot code, don’t eat it if it’s affected, and follow the return or disposal instructions. If you spot a recall we should be tracking, have a story idea, or catch something that needs correcting, send us a note: foodrecallwatch at lantern podcasts dot com.
We’ve put links to all of today’s recalls and source notices in the show notes, so if one affects your kitchen, your business, or someone you cook for, you can check the details there.
That’s Food Recall Watch for this Wednesday, May 27. This is a Lantern Podcast.