Baraka Hot Curry Powder packed in 7 OZ Plastic Jar
U.B.C. Food Distributors INC. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 19 December 2018 as Class I. The recall was initiated by the firm. UBC FOOD Distributors initiated a voluntary recall of Baraka Hot and Mild Curry Powder packed in 7 oz. plastic tubs due to high levels of lead found in the products.
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
- Baraka Hot Curry Powder packed in 7 OZ Plastic Jar
- Reason for recall
- UBC FOOD Distributors initiated a voluntary recall of Baraka Hot and Mild Curry Powder packed in 7 oz. plastic tubs due to high levels of lead found in the products.
- Recalling firm
- U.B.C. Food Distributors INC.
- Firm location
- Dearborn, Michigan, United States
- Classification
- Class I
- Status
- Terminated
- Recall number
- F-0715-2019
- Quantity
- 8 cases
- Distribution
- Domestic: CO, IL, IN, MI, MO, MN, NE, NY, OH Foreign/ VA/DOD: None
- Initiated
- 19 October 2018
- Reported by FDA
- 19 December 2018
- Terminated
- 2 June 2020
- Firm notified by
- Telephone
- Product codes
- Baraka Hot Curry Powder packed in 7 oz. Plastic Jar, Upc 8 22514 26556 6 / case UPC 8 22514 266808 Product ID SPI .26556 (Hot)
Reading this record
Five things about this record are not in the record itself, and each one changes how it should be read.
- Class I means the FDA judged a reasonable probability that the product would cause serious health consequences or death. 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 is one of 2 records covering the same recall event. The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so a recall of a product line appears here many times. Counting these records as 2 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 2. Every product code in this event is listed together on the record that covers the whole recall, which is the page a search engine is pointed to for all 2 of them.
- The recall ran for 19 months, from 19 October 2018 to termination on 2 June 2020. 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 8 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 2 months after the firm began the recall.
- Recalls of a spice or seasoning run a median of 6 months, so this one was longer than usual for its category. Spices are a low-moisture, globally sourced, minimally processed ingredient that is added after any kill step, which is the combination that makes Salmonella in a spice lot capable of contaminating every product it was blended into.
Named in the distribution pattern: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Virginia. 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
Foreign material
A foreign material recall means something that is not food was found in food: metal, plastic, glass, wood or insect matter, usually shed by equipment during processing.
A preventive controls plan covers foreign material 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 117.40
- Equipment and utensils: plant equipment designed and maintained so it cannot contaminate food with lubricants, fuel, metal fragments or contaminated water.
- 21 CFR 117.80(c)
- Manufacturing operations: the measures that protect food from contamination during processing, including the effective ones against metal and other extraneous material.
- 21 CFR 117.150
- Corrective actions: what a facility does when a preventive control was not properly implemented, including identifying and correcting the problem and evaluating the food for safety.
Chemical contamination
A chemical contamination recall covers a substance that is harmful in food and was never meant to be there: a heavy metal, a cleaning chemical, a pesticide residue, or a natural toxin such as aflatoxin or histamine.
A preventive controls plan covers chemical contamination 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 117.35(b)
- Substances used in cleaning and sanitizing: toxic materials stored, identified and used so they cannot contaminate food, food-contact surfaces or packaging.
- 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.
- 21 CFR 117.130(b)(1)(ii)
- Hazard analysis: identifying the known or reasonably foreseeable chemical hazards, including radiological hazards, pesticide and drug residues, natural toxins and food decomposition.
Filed under spices and seasonings. A product can sit in more than one.
Other spices and seasonings 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 U.B.C. Food Distributors INC.
The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so several of these are frequently one recall event.
| Reported | Product | Firm | Reason | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-06-19 | Baraka brand ground black pepper packaged in 7oz retail containers with UPC 8 22514 26626 6; 10 units per case | U.B.C. Food Distributors INC. | Potential Salmonella contamination | Class I |
| 2018-12-19 | Baraka Mild Curry Powder packed in 7 oz. Plastic Jar | U.B.C. Food Distributors INC. | UBC FOOD Distributors initiated a voluntary recall of Baraka Hot and Mild Curry Powder packed in 7 oz. plastic tubs due to high levels of lead found in the products. | Class I |
All 3 records for U.B.C. Food Distributors INC.
All 2018 recalls · All FDA food recall data
21 CFR 117.40 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.