Undeclared fish in FDA food recalls

219 FDA food recall records since 2012 name undeclared fish, out of 7,778 undeclared allergen recalls in total. 89 are Class I. Data last updated 2 September 2026.

Records of 29,386

219

Share of all recalls

0.7%

Class I of 219

89

Reported between

2012 to 2026

Fish as a major food allergen

Fish is a major food allergen that a label must identify by species, and it is most often undeclared through anchovy in a sauce or a seasoning.

These records are a subset of the 7,778 undeclared allergen recalls. A single recall frequently names more than one allergen, so the counts across this family overlap. An undeclared allergen recall means a food contained one of the major allergens and the label did not say so, either because the wrong label was applied or because an ingredient carried an allergen nobody traced.

What is different about these records

By product, Fish is weighted toward fish and seafood: 41.6% of the records here against 8.2% across the corpus.

A recall involving undeclared fish stays open a median of 82 days between the report and termination, against 215 days for the corpus as a whole. Termination follows the firm accounting for every unit of the affected lot.

These recalls stay local: 5.9% state nationwide distribution, against 20.7% across the corpus.

What the FDA says

What the law says about fish

Fish is one of the nine in 21 U.S.C. 321(qq)(1), given with the examples bass, flounder and cod, and section 343(w)(2) requires that the name of the food source for fish be the species. Contains fish is not a compliant declaration; Contains cod is. That is why a species substitution can be an allergen recall and not only a fraud case, and why anchovy in a Worcestershire sauce or a Caesar dressing, the ingredient behind most of the records here, has to appear by name. Crustacean shellfish is a separate major allergen, and molluscs are not one at all.

The clause this maps to

A preventive controls plan covers an undeclared fish allergen under the clauses below. This is where the control belongs, not a finding against any firm named on this page: a recall record states a reason, and most of these recalls were initiated by the firm itself.

21 CFR 117.135(c)(2)

Food allergen controls: the written preventive controls that keep an allergen out of a food it does not belong in, and that get the allergens present onto the label.

21 CFR 101.4

Ingredient declaration: every ingredient listed by its common name, in descending order of predominance, on the label of a packaged food.

21 CFR 117 subpart G

Supply-chain programme: the approval and verification a receiving facility runs on a supplier when the hazard is controlled before the ingredient arrives.

By year

Counts are by the date the FDA reported the enforcement action. That date runs behind the date a firm started a recall, so the most recent year is always partial.

Firms with the most records

A firm appears here because it reported recalls, which is what a working recall procedure produces. A high count frequently reflects a single event split across many product codes rather than many separate failures.

• Lemonland Food Corp26
• Albertsons Companies LLC13
• Northern Fish Products, Inc.11
• DAISO CALIFORNIA WAREHOUSE9
• Wismettac Asian Foods, INC9
• Damon Industries7
• Wang Globalnet5
• Whole Foods Market5
• Son In Law Products5
• Giant Eagle, Inc.4
• Win Luck Trading Inc4
• HumbleHungryHappy LLC3

Where the recalling firms are

The state is the location of the recalling firm, not where the product was sold. Distribution is recorded separately on each record.

• California48
• Washington41
• New Jersey15
• Idaho15
• Florida14
• Michigan11
• Oregon8
• Pennsylvania8
• New York7
• Nevada7
• Texas5
• Massachusetts5

Most recently reported

Questions

How many FDA recalls involve undeclared fish?

219 FDA food recall records since 2012 name undeclared fish, out of 7,778 undeclared allergen recalls in total. That makes it the eighth most frequently undeclared of the allergens tracked here.

Is fish a major food allergen?

Fish is a major food allergen that a label must identify by species, and it is most often undeclared through anchovy in a sauce or a seasoning.

Which clause covers undeclared fish?

Allergen labelling failures are covered under 21 CFR 117.135(c)(2), the food allergen preventive controls, together with 21 CFR 101.4 for the ingredient declaration itself. Where the allergen arrived inside a purchased ingredient, the supply-chain programme in 21 CFR 117 subpart G is the control that should have caught it.

All FDA food recall data