Quaker Oatmeal Squares Breakfast Cereal, Variety Pack 43.5 oz 3 Pack
The Quaker Oats Co. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 6 March 2024 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. potential Salmonella
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
- Quaker Oatmeal Squares Breakfast Cereal, Variety Pack 43.5 oz 3 Pack
- Reason for recall
- potential Salmonella
- Recalling firm
- The Quaker Oats Co.
- Firm location
- Danville, Illinois, United States
- Classification
- Class II
- Status
- Terminated
- Recall number
- F-0991-2024
- Quantity
- 22,512,942 total cases for all products
- Distribution
- This product was distributed and sold nationally in all states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Saipan, as well as outside of the United States.
- Initiated
- 15 December 2023
- Reported by FDA
- 6 March 2024
- Terminated
- 20 November 2024
- Firm notified by
- Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
- Product codes
- Best Before of Aug-02-24 and any earlier date
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 65 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 65 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 65. 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 65 of them.
- The recall ran for 11 months, from 15 December 2023 to termination on 20 November 2024. 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 FDA published the enforcement report 3 months 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.
What this recall was for
Salmonella
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.
Filed under grains, flour and pasta. A product can sit in more than one.
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.
Other records from The Quaker Oats Co.
The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so several of these are frequently one recall event. 64 other records name this firm.
All 65 records for The Quaker Oats Co.
All 2024 recalls · All FDA food recall data
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.
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.