Wegmans Chicken Cutlet; by the lb, in a meal or in a 22 oz. Family Pack; "Heating…
Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 2 September 2020 as Class III. The recall was initiated by the firm. Products are potentially contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
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
Wegmans Chicken Cutlet; by the lb, in a meal or in a 22 oz. Family Pack; "Heating Instructions: Oven-Preheat to 400 degrees F. Remove chicken from package and place on baking sheet pan. Bake 5-7 minutes. Microwave-Remove label/lid. Heat 2-3 minutes"; Keep Refrigerated; packaged in plastic clamshell
Reason for recall
Products are potentially contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
Purchased from 8/5/2020 through 8/7/2020. UPC: 21761100000 and Sell by 8/9/2020 UPC: 22761100000 and Sell by 8/9/2020 - 8/13/2020 UPC: 22743500000 and Sell by 8/9/2020 - 8/13/2020 UPC: 21761700000 and Sell by 8/9/2020
Reading this record
Five things about this record are not in the record itself, and each one changes how it should be read.
Class III means the FDA judged that the product was unlikely to cause harm but violated FDA labelling or manufacturing regulation. 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 23 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 23 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 23. All 23 of them are listed on this page.
The recall ran for 3 weeks, from 7 August 2020 to termination on 31 August 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 6 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 4 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of fish or seafood run a median of 5 months, so this one was shorter than usual for its category. Fish and fishery products are the one food category with their own HACCP regulation in the United States, 21 CFR part 123, because the hazards are species-specific: histamine in scombroid fish, ciguatera in reef fish, and Listeria in cold-smoked products.
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.
The FDA opened 23 enforcement records for this one recall, one per product code. This page carries all of them; the 22 below each have their own page with that product’s lot codes and distribution, and search engines are pointed here for the recall as a whole.
Products are potentially contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
Class III
Other fish and seafood 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.
