Rocks in Trader Joe’s cookies. Insects in its broccoli-cheese soup. Pieces of plastic in Banquet frozen chicken strips.
It’s time for some recalls. A recall happens when a company removes a food product from the market because it might be contaminated. That means that something is in the food that is not supposed to be there.
In the last few weeks, U.S. shoppers have seen several recalls. The food products contain foreign objects. Bugs, rocks, and plastic have no business on your dinner plate.
Take a big bite of peanut butter. Your tooth strikes something hard. It’s a piece of stainless steel. Chomp into some smoked sausage . . . and hit a bit of bone. This type of food contamination is one of the top reasons for food recalls in the United States.
These are common food contaminants:
- Plastic pieces from frayed conveyor belts;
- Wood shards from produce pallets;
- Metal shavings or wire from machinery; and
- Rocks, sticks, and bugs that make it from the field to the factory.
Nine recalls in 2022 happened because of foreign objects. In 2019, manufacturers did a giant recall of nearly 12 million pounds of Tyson chicken strips. The chicken was tainted with pieces of metal.
Food producers work hard to make sure weird objects don’t get into food. They use magnets, metal detectors, and X-ray devices. These scan for unwanted materials.
Still, they can’t catch everything. And when they fail, food producers have to admit their mistake. That’s good business. It also keeps shoppers safe.
In 2021, pieces of gray rubber gloves turned up in chicken tortilla soup. Copper wire appeared in frozen beef shepherd’s pie in 2022. Bits of golf balls were found in frozen hash browns in 2017. In the same year, a dead bat showed up in a bag of salad!
Have you ever found a weird object in packaged food? If you do, let its manufacturer know.
