Recall Roundup: December 8, 2009

Here is today's list of food safety recalls, product withdrawals and allergy alerts. The live links will take you directly to the official recall notices and company news releases that contain detailed information for each recall and alert.

United States

• Food Safety Recall (Retail Distribution): USDA releases list of retail stores that sold Salmonella-contaminated ground beef recalled by Beef Packers, Inc.
• Food Safety Advisory: South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control urges residents to discard oysters harvested from Gulf of Texas’ San Antonio Bay after the oysters are linked to an outbreak of Norovirus gastroenteritis.
• Food Safety Advisory: Minnesota Department of Agriculture advises consumers to avoid drinking Minnesota Harvest brand apple cider after department laboratory tests found the product to be contaminated with a type of mold toxin called patulin.
• FDA Warning Letter: FDA warns CFM (dba Your Deli) that a July 2009 inspection of the company's seafood processing facility uncovered serious violations of the seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulation, and the Current Good Manufacturing Practice regulation for foods.
• FDA Warning Letter: FDA warns U.F. Union International Food Company, Inc. that an inspection of the company's spice processing facility determined that it had processed and introduced into interstate commerce white pepper products that were adulterated, in that the white pepper was contaminated with Salmonella Rissen. Union recalled a number of spice products in March and April 2009 due to this contamination.
• Consumer Product Recall: Bayer's Consumer Care division recalls a single product lot of the combination package of Alka-Seltzer Plus® Day & Night Cold Formula Liquid Gels. Bayer initiated the recall after identifying that the labeling on the foil blister card of certain packages within the lot (less than 4 percent) were printed with the label reversed. All individual liquid filled capsules are imprinted correctly.

Canada

• Dietary Supplement Warning: Health Canada is advising Canadians not to use certain Acai Berry products after a large number of shipments of adulterated products were stopped at the border. The product names include: Anti-Aging Acai Berry, Guarana Blast, Brazillian Pure, Anti-aging Vital Rez V, Weight Loss VitalAcai, Dietary Supplement Acai Power Blast and Muscle Mass. These products are advertized for anti-aging and weight loss and were found to contain undeclared Sildenafil, a prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.

Europe

• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1690): Mercury in smoked swordfish (Xiphias gladius) from Spain; distributed in Italy.
• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1692): Listeria monocytogenes in cheese products from Poland; distributed in France.
• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1693): Imazalil (pesticide residue) in fresh grapes from Turkey; distributed in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Russian Federation.
• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1694): Mineral oil (industrial contaminant) in refined sunflower oil from Ukraine; distributed in Belgium and the Netherlands.
• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1695): Aluminium (chemical contamination) in noodles from China (Hong Kong); distributed in Germany and Poland.
• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1696): Procymidone and lambda-cyhalothrin (pesticide residues) in table grapes from Turkey, via the Netherlands; distributed in Germany.
• Food Safety Notification (EU #2009.1697): BSE tests not conducted on bovine meat from Germany; distributed in Austria, France and Germany.

Some supermarket chains post recall notices on their web sites for the convenience of customers. To see whether a recalled food was carried by your favorite supermarket, follow the live link to the supermarket's recall web site.

• A&P
• Big Y® World Class Market®
  
• BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc.
  
• Bloom
  
• Brookshire's
  
• Costco Wholesale Corporation (US stores)
  
• Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd.
  
• EDEKA (Germany)
• Food City
  
• Food Lion
  
• Giant Food LLC
• Hannaford Brothers Co.
  
• Harris Teeter
  
• Harvey's Supermarket
  
• H-E-B
• The Kroger Company*
  
• Price Chopper
  
• Raley's
• Roundy's Supermarkets, Inc.
  
• Sainsbury's
  
• ShopRite
  
• Stop & Shop
• Sweetbay Supermarkets
• Target
  
• Tops Friendly Markets
  
• Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
  
• Wegmans
  
• Whole Foods Market
  
• Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc.
  

*The Kroger umbrella encompasses numerous supermarket, marketplace and convenience store chains, listed on the Kroger corporate home page.

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