Lamb Weston Inc recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 22 July 2020 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. The Tater Bites product has the potential to be contaminated with foreign material.
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
WinCo Foods Tater Bites Shaped, Shredded Potatoes, frozen product. Retail 32 oz. poly bag has UPC 0 70552 30303 4. The master case contains 12/32 oz. bags (net wt. 24 lbs.), identified as WinCo Foods Tater Bites WN420, 1 00 70552 30303 1. The 32 oz. retail package label is read in parts: "***Tater Bites, sharped, shredded potatoes ***INGREDIENTS: POTATOES, VEGETABLE OIL***, SALT, CORN FLOUR, DEHYDRATED POTATO, ONION POWDER, SPICE, DISODIUM DIHYDROGEN PYROPHOSPHATE***DISTRIBUTED BY: WINCO FOODS, LLC, BOISE, ID***PRODUCT OF U.S.A.***".
UPC
070552303034
Reason for recall
The Tater Bites product has the potential to be contaminated with foreign material.
Retail Bag Lot: 60700531212. Best if used by 30NOV2021 Master Case Lot: Best if Used By 30NOV2021 607005312221HH:MM.
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 3 weeks, from 6 July 2020 to termination on 28 July 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 2 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 2 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of fresh produce run a median of 7 months, so this one was shorter than usual for its category. Fresh produce is the category where contamination arrives before the facility does: irrigation water, soil amendments and field workers are the routes, and nothing downstream of the farm is a kill step for a product eaten raw.
Named in the distribution pattern: Oregon, Washington. Those pages count recalls by where the RECALLING FIRM sits, which is a different question from where this product went.
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.
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.
Hash brown product, sold under brands Brookshire's, Market Pantry, Breakfast, and Stater Bros, are recalled because the product may contain small fragments of hard, clear plastic.
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.
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.
