Gulf Coast Blenders, Inc recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 4 March 2015 as Class I. The recall was initiated by the firm. Spice blends contain ground cumin which was recalled by Schiff Food Products due to the possible presence of peanut protein.
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
Gulf Coast Brand Cumin, NET WEIGHT 3.5 lbs (1.59 kg), GULF COAST BLENDERS, INC., NEW ORLEANS, LA
Reason for recall
Spice blends contain ground cumin which was recalled by Schiff Food Products due to the possible presence of peanut protein.
Lot# 4336, BEST BY 12/02/16 & 4350, BEST BY 12/16/16
Reading this record
Five things about this record are not in the record itself, and each one changes how it should be read.
Class I means the FDA judged a reasonable probability that the product would cause serious health consequences or death. 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 6 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 6 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 6. 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 6 of them.
The recall ran for 3 months, from 31 December 2014 to termination on 24 March 2015. 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 4 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 2 months after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a spice or seasoning run a median of 6 months, so this one was shorter than usual for its category. Spices are a low-moisture, globally sourced, minimally processed ingredient that is added after any kill step, which is the combination that makes Salmonella in a spice lot capable of contaminating every product it was blended into.
Named in the distribution pattern: Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, California. 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.
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.
