An Analysis of Food Recalls in the United States, 2002–2023

Abstract

This article evaluates and summarizes Food and Beverages (F&B) recalls managed or mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the past 20 years: the database includes over 35,000 recalls. For recall classification purposes, the causes were separated into 2 overall categories consisting of product contaminants or processing issues. The product contaminants category was further separated into 5 groups: allergens, biological contaminants, chemical contaminants, foreign objects, and undeclared food colors. The processing issues category was separated into 6 groups: cGMP issues, HACCP issues, manufacturing issues, mislabeling or misbranding, refrigeration issues, and under-processing. Product contaminants accounted for 91% of the F&B recalls, while processing issues accounted for the remaining 9%. Two groups accounted for about 76% of the recalls: biological contamination and allergens. The FDA classifies recalls by the potential severity of the health impact. Over half of the F&B recalls were Class I recalls, and biological contamination and allergens accounted for 96% of those recalls. Listeria monocytogenes was the largest cause of all of the recalls accounting for 7,844 recalls: 22% of the total recalls and 45% of the biological contamination recalls. Salmonella serovars were responsible for 6,597 recalls, including 18% of the total recalls and 38% of the biological recalls. Listeria and Salmonella serovars together resulted in 40% of all of the F&B recalls.