The Executive with Houdini Blue Cheese Twists, 7 ounces COM 659 SKU# 54002-3, SKU#54087-0
Houdini Inc. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 8 February 2017 as Class I. The recall was initiated by the firm. Potential Salmonella contamination.
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
- The Executive with Houdini Blue Cheese Twists, 7 ounces COM 659 SKU# 54002-3, SKU#54087-0
- Reason for recall
- Potential Salmonella contamination.
- Recalling firm
- Houdini Inc.
- Firm location
- Fullerton, California, United States
- Classification
- Class I
- Status
- Terminated
- Recall number
- F-1394-2017
- Quantity
- 6,371 baskets
- Distribution
- U.S. distribution to the following; nationwide including Puerto Rico.
- Initiated
- 9 December 2016
- Reported by FDA
- 8 February 2017
- Terminated
- 1 March 2017
- Firm notified by
- Letter
- Product codes
- LC442525, LC442751, LC443675
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 31 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 31 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 31. All 31 of them are listed on this page.
- The recall ran for 3 months, from 9 December 2016 to termination on 1 March 2017. 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 2 months after the firm began the recall.
- Recalls of cheese run a median of 7 months, so this one was shorter than usual for its category. Cheese dominates Listeria recalls among dairy products because soft and semi-soft varieties hold enough moisture for the organism to grow at refrigeration temperature, and because most are eaten without any further cooking step.
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 cheese. A product can sit in more than one.
Every product in this recall
The FDA opened 31 enforcement records for this one recall, one per product code. This page carries all of them; the 30 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.
Other cheese 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 Houdini Inc.
The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so several of these are frequently one recall event. 40 other records name this firm.
All 41 records for Houdini Inc.
All 2017 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.