Grains, flour and pasta in FDA food recalls

1,979 of the 29,386 FDA food recall records published since 2012 involve a grain, flour or pasta product, which is 6.7% of every food recall the agency has reported. 752 are Class I, and the median one ran 6 months. Data last updated 2 September 2026.

Records of 29,386

1,979

Share of all recalls

6.7%

Class I of 1,979

752

Reported between

2012 to 2026

Who got ill

The CDC recorded 83 foodborne outbreaks attributed to grains and beans between 2012 and 2023, with 1,675 reported illnesses, 91 hospitalisations and 1 deaths. That is 0.9% of the 9,038 foodborne outbreaks in the dataset, and 0.6 in every thousand of those reported ill died.

The cause recorded most often was Bacillus cereus, in 29 of the 62 outbreaks where a cause was recorded at all.

The setting recorded most often was a sit-down restaurant, in 43 of the 80 where a setting was named.

What is different about these records

The hazard that separates Grains, flour and pasta from the national picture is undeclared allergens: 37.6% of these records name it, against 26.5% of all FDA food recalls.

These records overlap heavily with spices and seasonings: 28.3% of them also fall under that category, against 9.6% across the corpus. A record can carry more than one category.

Why grains, flour and pasta recalls the way it does

Flour is a raw agricultural product that consumers treat as though it were cooked, which is the whole reason raw flour recalls exist: nothing in milling is a kill step, and the hazard only appears when somebody eats the dough.

Measured across these 1,979 records, undeclared allergens is the most frequent reason at 745, then listeria monocytogenes at 359. A record can name more than one hazard, so these overlap and do not sum to 1,979.

What goes wrong

• Undeclared allergens745
• Listeria monocytogenes359
• Foreign material264
• Salmonella194
• E. coli76
• Spoilage and mould36
• Chemical contamination29
• Clostridium botulinum22
• Unapproved ingredients16
• Process deviation7
• Viral and parasitic contamination6

The regulation that governs it

Flour is a raw agricultural commodity milled without a kill step. It is under part 117, and a mill's hazard analysis under §117.130 has to consider a pathogen in a product consumers will eat raw as dough or batter, because nothing between the field and the bag removes it. Part 137 is the standard of identity for cereal flours: §137.105 defines flour and §137.165 enriched flour, including the vitamins and iron that must be added, and §139.110 does the same for macaroni products. None of them says anything about pathogens. The undeclared-wheat records in this category are the reverse case: a product that should not have contained wheat and did.

These are the parts of 21 CFR that bear on a grain, flour or pasta product, reproduced in full on this site because title 21 is United States public domain.

• 21 CFR Part 11761Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food
• 21 CFR Part 13729Cereal Flours and Related Products

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.

• Garden-Fresh Foods, Inc.97
• Dakota Specialty Milling, Inc52
• Giant Eagle38
• High Liner Foods Inc.31
• Reser's Fine Foods, Inc.29
• Let's Do Lunch, Inc.25
• The Quaker Oats Co.21
• Whole Foods Market21
• ADM - CHICAGO20
• Albertsons Companies LLC19
• Correctional Industries Food Factory19
• General Mills, Inc18

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.

• California372
• Washington168
• Wisconsin139
• Illinois117
• Oregon108
• Ohio95
• Pennsylvania93
• New York76
• Texas74
• Minnesota59
• North Dakota54
• New Jersey51

Most recently reported

Questions

How many FDA recalls involve a grain, flour or pasta product?

1,979 of the 29,386 FDA food recall records published since 2012 involve a grain, flour or pasta product, which is 6.7% of all of them. 752 are Class I.

Why does grains, flour and pasta get recalled?

Flour is a raw agricultural product that consumers treat as though it were cooked, which is the whole reason raw flour recalls exist: nothing in milling is a kill step, and the hazard only appears when somebody eats the dough.

What is the most common reason for a grains, flour and pasta recall?

Undeclared allergens appears in 745 of the 1,979 records in this category, followed by listeria monocytogenes with 359. A single recall can name more than one hazard, so these counts overlap.

How long does a grains, flour and pasta recall take?

The median recall in this category ran 6 months from the date the firm initiated it to the date the FDA terminated it. Termination means the agency judged that all reasonable effort had been made under 21 CFR 7.55; it does not mean no product remained in circulation.

All FDA food recall data