Mello Yello, Citrus Flavored Soda, 12 oz (355 mL) cans, packed in 12 packs, Canned under…
Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Company recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 14 March 2018 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. Sharp edges were observed on several of the cans which have the potential of causing cuts on the mouths of consumers who use the product.
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
Mello Yello, Citrus Flavored Soda, 12 oz (355 mL) cans, packed in 12 packs, Canned under the authority of the Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, GA
Reason for recall
Sharp edges were observed on several of the cans which have the potential of causing cuts on the mouths of consumers who use the product.
Distributed to retail stores in AR, IA, IL, KS, MO, and NE.
Initiated
12 February 2018
Reported by FDA
14 March 2018
Terminated
5 July 2018
Firm notified by
Letter
Product codes
Oct 01 18 LXD
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 is one of 20 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 20 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 20. 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 20 of them.
The recall ran for 5 months, from 12 February 2018 to termination on 5 July 2018. 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 5 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 4 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a beverage or juice run a median of 6 months, so this one was about typical for its category. Juice is the other food with its own HACCP regulation in the United States, 21 CFR part 120, which requires a treatment achieving a 5-log reduction of the pertinent pathogen, and unpasteurised juice recalls are almost always a failure of that step or an exemption misapplied.
Named in the distribution pattern: Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska. Those pages count recalls by where the RECALLING FIRM sits, which is a different question from where this product went.
These are the closest records in the corpus: the same kind of food. 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.
Behind every recall is a clause 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.
