Today: Trader Joe's Cotija Listeria, an Orgain peanut alert, and a toxic baby-food recall. Welcome to Food Recall Watch. FDA writes:
Trader Joe's of Monrovia, CA is recalling certain products containing cotija cheese, as the cheese used to make these products has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Listeria infection can cause miscarriage and stillbirths among pregnant women.
Trader Joe's, out of Monrovia, California, is recalling products made with Cotija cheese — the FDA notice says the cheese itself may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. Separate from the frozen fried rice expansion: different products, different hazard. And this traces back upstream: the Rizo-López Foods Listeria situation now has Trader Joe's Cotija items caught in the same contamination net. So that's the second Trader Joe's thing this week, and it's a supplier problem — one cheese showing up across multiple SKUs. If you cleared the fried rice earlier, that doesn't mean you cleared this. Cera — toss or return? Because with Listeria, you don't just sit there watching for symptoms. It's the dangerous one for pregnant folks and older shoppers. Here's what the FDA is reporting. Orgain has issued a voluntary allergy alert — not a recall — for a single batch of its 30G Protein Organic Plant Based Powder, Chocolate, the 2.01-pound tub, because of possible undeclared peanut residue. One batch, per the FDA notice. A chocolate protein powder. Nobody scanning a label for peanut is gonna think to flip over the plant-based protein first — that's exactly the kind of name that hides the risk. For tracking it, that difference matters: voluntary allergy alert versus a formal recall. Right now, the scope is one batch. If it widens, that's the number we watch. So check the lot code on the tub. If you've got a peanut allergy in the house, don't wait for symptoms — match the batch and return it. USA TODAY writes:
A California-based baby food manufacturer has recalled one of its products due to elevated levels of toxins that could cause nerve damage, fevers and more. The company, IF Copack LLC or Initiative Foods, recalled its 'Tippy Toes' Apple Pear Banana Fruit Puree on Friday, Feb. 13, due to levels of patulin. Exposure to the naturally occurring substance can lead to immune suppression, nerve damage, headache, fever, and nausea.
The standalone item today: IF Copack LLC, doing business as Initiative Foods out of California, recalled its Tippy Toes Apple Pear Banana Fruit Puree. The hazard is patulin — a toxin rather than a pathogen — flagged for elevated levels. And this didn't start with a sick-customer report. The FDA caught it through its Total Diet Study sampling — they test contaminant levels in foods across the country, and this puree came back high. Okay, but a baby food with nerve-damage risk — what does a parent actually do? Is there a lot code on that pouch, or do I clear the whole Tippy Toes line? And patulin — you can't see it, can't taste it, same basic rule as that herring thing this week. Nobody spoon-checks a fruit puree to see if it's fine. Here's ABC News:
More Trader Joe's frozen fried rice products are being recalled because of possible contamination with glass. Ajinomoto Foods North America, Inc. and the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service announced the voluntary recall expansion on March 3, including Trader Joe's branded frozen packages of Chicken Fried Rice, Vegetable Fried Rice, Japanese Style Fried Rice and Chicken Shu Mai products.
The Trader Joe's frozen fried rice recall got bigger. Ajinomoto Foods North America and USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service expanded it March 3 to cover Chicken Fried Rice, Vegetable Fried Rice, Japanese Style Fried Rice, and Chicken Shu Mai — possible glass contamination. And here's the piece people miss: the FDA updated it again March 20 to say if your package matches a listed lot number, it's recalled regardless of best-by date. So the date on the box doesn't clear you. So if you cleared one fried rice earlier this week, congrats — check again. Same supplier, four different products, and the lot number is the only thing that actually matters. Glass. So this is a return-it, full stop — don't cook it, don't pick through it. You're not winning that scavenger hunt. Return it or toss it for a refund, yeah. The lot numbers are on the USDA notice — that's what you check the bag against. This one's from FDA:
Today the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted a warning letter issued to Whole Foods Market for a pattern of receiving and offering for sale misbranded food products necessitating a series of food recalls for allergens. In the last year, Whole Foods Market has recalled more than 30 food products because the presence of major food allergens was not listed on the finished product labels.
This one's a different animal from everything else on the board this week. The FDA posted a warning letter to Whole Foods Market over a pattern of selling misbranded products with undeclared allergens. More than thirty products in a year. Thirty! One bad batch slipping through doesn't explain that — you're looking at a system that keeps mislabeling allergens and catches it only after the fact. Right — and for listeners, that distinction matters. A recall pulls one product. A warning letter is the agency saying the controls themselves are failing across the prepared-foods case. And this is the premium-retailer halo getting cracked. You walk into Whole Foods assuming the label's airtight, and the FDA just put on paper that more than thirty times in a year, it wasn't. The shift this week is real — we've spent days reading lot codes off individual boxes. Today, a federal agency told a national chain to fix the allergen controls behind those labels. If you spot a recall we should be watching, have a story idea, or notice something we should correct, email us at foodrecallwatch at lantern podcasts dot com. Your tips help keep this briefing useful.
We’ve put links to every recall and source we mentioned in today’s show notes, so if one affects your kitchen, it’s worth taking a closer look there.
That’s Food Recall Watch for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.