Hostesss SnoBalls packaged as Hostess Chocolate CupCakes, Net Wt 3.17 OZ, UPC 8 88109…
HOSTESS BRANDS LLC recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 12 May 2021 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. SnoBalls snack cakes were packaged with a label for Chocolate CupCakes causing the product to fail to declare the major food allergen coconut.
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
Hostesss SnoBalls packaged as Hostess Chocolate CupCakes, Net Wt 3.17 OZ, UPC 8 88109 01001 0, Hostess Brands, LLC Kansas City, MO
UPC
888109010010
Reason for recall
SnoBalls snack cakes were packaged with a label for Chocolate CupCakes causing the product to fail to declare the major food allergen coconut.
Distributed to retail distribution centers in AL, FL, IA, KY, MI, NV, NY, OH, PA, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI
Initiated
10 April 2021
Reported by FDA
12 May 2021
Terminated
24 June 2021
Firm notified by
Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
Product codes
Best by May 27, 2021
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 2 months, from 10 April 2021 to termination on 24 June 2021. 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 13 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 5 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a snack or confectionery product run a median of 7 months, so this one was shorter than usual for its category. Snacks and confectionery recall for allergens more than for anything else, because a chocolate or a coated snack passes through shared equipment carrying milk, soy and nuts, and the label is the only control between them and the consumer.
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.
Other snacks and confectionery 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.
The firm discovered that certain units shipped to the U.S. retail stores only has "foreign languages" on the label. Product has undeclared wheat, soy, milk, eggs and tree nut (coconut).
Undeclared Soy. Finished product ingredients statement declares Worcestershire sauce but does not declare sub-ingredients Soy Flavoring and Soy Lecithin.
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.
Recall 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.
