Mars Chocolate North America Milk Chocolate M & M's Net Wt. 3.40 oz packed in a brown, 3…
Mars Chocolate North America recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 15 October 2014 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. Mars Chocolate North America is recalling M & Ms due to undeclared peanuts.
The record
Every field below is published by the FDA in the openFDA food enforcement database. Check the FDA notice before acting on any recall: this page is a reading of the public record, not a substitute for it.
- Product
- Mars Chocolate North America Milk Chocolate M & M's Net Wt. 3.40 oz packed in a brown, 3 inch x 6.5 inch cardboard box 12 Theater boxes per case Distributed by Mars Snackfoods US LLC., Hackettstown, NJ 07840-1503 UPC 40000294764
- UPC
- 40000294764
- Reason for recall
- Mars Chocolate North America is recalling M & Ms due to undeclared peanuts.
- Recalling firm
- Mars Chocolate North America
- Firm location
- Hackettstown, New Jersey, United States
- Classification
- Class II
- Status
- Terminated
- Recall number
- F-0014-2015
- Quantity
- 65,496 cases
- Distribution
- NC, TX, MN, IL, FL, KY, MS, AZ, GA, AI, CA NJ, PA, WA NY, CO, MO, MI, NH, CT, TN, MD, SC, OH, ME, VA, RI, WI, WV, IA, LA, OK, MA, NE, OK, AR, VT, ID and IN
- Initiated
- 19 September 2014
- Reported by FDA
- 15 October 2014
- Terminated
- 28 April 2015
- Firm notified by
- Press Release
- Product codes
- 417DH4JP09; 417EM4JP10; 417FM4JP09; 418AG4JP10; 418BG4JP10; 418CG4JP10; 418DM4JP09; 418EG4JP10; 419AM4JP09; 417EG4JP09; 417FG4JP09; 417FM4JP10; 418AM4JP09; 418BM4JP10 ;418CM4JP10; 418DM4JP10; 418EM4JP09; 419AM4JP10; 417EG4JP10; 417FG4JP10; 418AG4JP09; 418AM4JP10; 418CG4JP09; 418DG4JP10; 418EG4JP09; 418EM4JP10; and 419BM4JP10
Reading this record
Five things about this record are not in the record itself, and each one changes how it should be read.
- Class II means the FDA judged a remote probability of serious harm, or a probability of temporary or medically reversible harm. The class is assigned by an agency health hazard evaluation under 21 CFR 7.41, not by the firm.
- The firm started this recall itself. Most FDA food recalls are voluntary, and a recall is a food safety plan working rather than failing. The circumstances in which the agency asks for one instead are set out in 21 CFR 7.45.
- This record is the only one the FDA opened for its recall event, so it covers a single product code.
- The recall ran for 7 months, from 19 September 2014 to termination on 28 April 2015. Termination means the agency judged that all reasonable effort had been made, under 21 CFR 7.55, and it says nothing about whether product remained in circulation.
- The distribution pattern names 33 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 4 weeks after the firm began the recall.
- Recalls of milk or a dairy product run a median of 7 months, so this one was about typical for its category. Dairy recalls split between pathogen contamination in products that skipped or under-ran pasteurisation and undeclared milk in products that should never have contained it, which is the same allergen viewed from two directions.
Named in the distribution pattern: North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Missouri, Michigan, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Virginia, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Arkansas, Vermont, Idaho, Indiana. Those pages count recalls by where the RECALLING FIRM sits, which is a different question from where this product went.
What this recall was for
Undeclared allergens
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.
A preventive controls plan covers an undeclared 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.
The allergens named in this record: peanuts.
Filed under milk and dairy and snacks and confectionery. A product can sit in more than one.
Other milk and dairy recalls for the same reason
These are the closest records in the corpus: the same kind of food, recalled for a hazard this record also names. Unlike the firm’s own records below, they come from different companies, which is what makes them a pattern rather than a history.
Other records from Mars Chocolate North America
The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so several of these are frequently one recall event. 18 other records name this firm.
All 19 records for Mars Chocolate North America
All 2014 recalls · All FDA food recall data
21 CFR 117.135(c)(2) is the clause behind this recall, and it is one somebody has to produce evidence for at their next audit. Krolda maps supplier documents to the clause they satisfy in FSSC 22000, IFS Food and 21 CFR 117, and routes the corrective action when the evidence is missing.
Early accessRecall records come from the openFDA food enforcement API, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the public domain. Krolda adds the hazard classification and the clause mapping; neither is an FDA determination. Always check the FDA notice before acting on a recall.