Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose Flour. Net Wt 5 lb. (2.26kg). UPC 16000-19610.
General Mills, Inc recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 13 February 2019 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose 5 lb. flour is being recalled due to potential Salmonella contamination.
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
Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose Flour. Net Wt 5 lb. (2.26kg). UPC 16000-19610. Distributed By General Mills Sales, Inc., Minneapolis, MN 55440 Cook Before Sneaking a Taste. Flour is Raw. Please Cook Fully Before Enjoying.
UPC
1600019610
Reason for recall
Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose 5 lb. flour is being recalled due to potential Salmonella contamination.
AL, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TNN, VA, VT, WI.
Initiated
23 January 2019
Reported by FDA
13 February 2019
Terminated
21 January 2020
Firm notified by
Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
Product codes
Better if Used By 20 APR 2020 KC
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 12 months, from 23 January 2019 to termination on 21 January 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 20 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 3 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a grain, flour or pasta product run a median of 6 months, so this one was longer than usual for its category. 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.
Salmonella is a bacterium that survives in low-moisture foods for months, which is why it appears in recalls of products that carry no water for it to grow in: nut butters, spices, flour and dry pet food.
A preventive controls plan covers Salmonella 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 117.135(c)(1)
Process controls: the controls that apply a treatment, such as a validated kill step, at the point where it reduces the hazard to a safe level.
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 117.165(a)(2)
Product testing: testing as a verification activity, appropriate to the facility, the food and the nature of the preventive control.
Other grains, flour and pasta 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.
Chocolate chip cookie dough larabars which contain cashews were incorrectly packaged in peanut butter cookie larabars boxes. The individual labeling on the chocolate chip cookie dough larabars is correct despite being in the wrong boxes.
Three flavors of Betty Crocker cake mix are being recalled by General Mills because of possible contamination with E. coli O121 associated with Gold Medal Flour recall.
General Mills is recalling a number of products because of a multistate outbreak of E. coli O121 that may be potentially linked to Gold Medal flour, Wondra flour, and Signature Kitchens flour. To date, E. coli O121 has not been found in any General Mills flour products or in the flour manufacturing facility and the company has not been contacted directly by any consumer reporting confirmed illnesses related to these products.
21 CFR 117.135(c)(1) 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.
