News & Columns > News Staff Member > Consumer Alert: Peanut Product Recall Continues

Consumer Alert: Peanut Product Recall Continues

US Food and Drug Administration

By News Staff Member
Monday, March 30, 2009

Although hundreds of recall notices have been posted for thousands of peanut products since mid-January, due to possible Salmonella contamination, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that a small number of cases of salmonellosis continues to occur.

To date, more than 2,100 products in 17 categories have been voluntarily recalled by more than 200 companies, and the list continues to grow.

FDA has advised consumers not to eat products that have been recalled and to throw them away in a manner that prevents others from eating them. However, some people interviewed recently by CDC may, apparently, still be eating recalled products and are becoming ill.

Products from The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) at both their Blakely, Georgia, and Plainview, Texas, plants are classified as a Class I recall: a situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

On February 20, 2009, PCA issued a statement indicating it had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and that it was no longer able to communicate with customers regarding recalled products. As a result, FDA and state officials are now coordinating their efforts to notify companies that received product from PCA facilities from January 1, 2007 forward.

See Timeline: Salmonella Typhimurium Investigation.

Foods that might have been recalled, depending on the source of the peanut ingredients, include peanuts (e.g., dry and oil roasted), peanut products (e.g., peanut paste, peanut butter, peanut granules, and peanut splits), as well as any foods that contain peanuts and/or peanut products as an ingredient. Examples of products that might contain such peanut ingredients are cookies, crackers, cereal, candy, and ice cream, among others. (Major national brands of jarred peanut butter found in grocery stores are not affected by the PCA recall.)

In January, the recall list was expanded to include some pet-food products that contain peanut paste made by PCA. Salmonella can affect animals, and humans who handle contaminated pet-food products also are at risk.

FDA offers a searchable database of recalled products and urges consumers to continue to check it often, as more recalls are added. Click here to search the database.

Please note, however, that some companies might not yet have notified FDA that they are recalling a product, and the product might not yet appear in the database. Before buying or consuming peanut-containing products that do not appear on the FDA database, please check the company's website or call the company to ensure that the product has not been recalled.

Also note that the potentially contaminated products probably will not have the name "Peanut Corporation of America" or "PCA" on the label. This is because other companies used PCA peanut ingredients in their products and put their own brand names, not PCA's name, on their labels.

Recalls are ongoing, as more potentially contaminated products are identified. The FDA database is updated frequently. Visitors to the database can sort their searches by product category; brand name; UPC code, if known; product description; or any combination of brand, UPC code, and description.

Those who do not have internet access can get this information by calling FDA's Information line at 1-888-SAFEFOOD during regular business hours or by calling CDC's information line at 1-800-CDC-INFO, which is staffed 24 hours a day.

FDA, CDC, and public health officials in various states continue to devote substantial resources to determining what additional products may be affected. Our goal is to share the most current information we have, and FDA and CDC will continue to provide updates as new information becomes available.

See FDA Peanut Product Recall website for more information.