Hostess Soft White Hot Dog Buns, Net Wt. 12 OZ, UPC 888109110970
Hostess Brands, LLC recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 8 September 2021 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. The firm's contract manufacturer found positive environmental samples analyzed for Listeria and Salmonella species.
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
Hostess Soft White Hot Dog Buns, Net Wt. 12 OZ, UPC 888109110970
UPC
888109110970
Reason for recall
The firm's contract manufacturer found positive environmental samples analyzed for Listeria and Salmonella species.
Distributed to distributors and retailers in AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, and WV.
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 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 6 months, from 13 August 2021 to termination on 24 February 2022. 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 34 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 4 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of pet or animal food run a median of 8 months, so this one was about typical for its category. Animal food is regulated under its own preventive controls rule at 21 CFR part 507, and a pet food recall is frequently a human health recall too, because Salmonella in dry pet food reaches people through the bowl and the hands rather than through eating it.
Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium that grows at refrigeration temperature, which is why it dominates recalls of ready-to-eat foods that are never cooked again before they are eaten.
A preventive controls plan covers Listeria 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)(3)
Sanitation controls: the controls on cleaning food-contact surfaces and on preventing cross-contact and cross-contamination from insanitary objects, people and equipment.
21 CFR 117.165(a)(3)
Environmental monitoring: testing the processing environment for an environmental pathogen, required when a ready-to-eat food is exposed to the environment before packaging.
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.
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 pet and animal food 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.
21 CFR 117.135(c)(3) 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.
