Red Onions, Bulk
Lancaster Foods LLC recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 23 September 2020 as Class I. The recall was initiated by the firm. Lancaster Foods LLC, 7700 Conowingo Avenue, Jessup, MD 20794 is initiating a recall of products that may have been made with the 500 pounds (bulk) of red onions out of a lot of 12,000 pounds (bulk) that were under the recalled Thomson International lots because of potential presence of salmonella bacteria. Lancaster Foods LLC. states that all minimally processed items go through a sanitize step of chlorine dioxide.

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
- Red Onions, Bulk
- Reason for recall
- Lancaster Foods LLC, 7700 Conowingo Avenue, Jessup, MD 20794 is initiating a recall of products that may have been made with the 500 pounds (bulk) of red onions out of a lot of 12,000 pounds (bulk) that were under the recalled Thomson International lots because of potential presence of salmonella bacteria. Lancaster Foods LLC. states that all minimally processed items go through a sanitize step of chlorine dioxide.
- Recalling firm
- Lancaster Foods LLC
- Firm location
- Jessup, Maryland, United States
- Classification
- Class I
- Status
- Terminated
- Recall number
- F-1436-2020
- Quantity
- 3,640 total cases
- Distribution
- Bulk Product distributed PA,AR,MD,MA,VA,DE,CT to various retailers.
- Initiated
- 10 August 2020
- Reported by FDA
- 23 September 2020
- Terminated
- 9 December 2020
- Firm notified by
- Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
- Product codes
- All SKUs
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 record is the only one the FDA opened for its recall event, so it covers a single product code.
- The recall ran for 4 months, from 10 August 2020 to termination on 9 December 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 5 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 6 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: Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, Delaware. Those pages count recalls by where the RECALLING FIRM sits, which is a different question from where this product went.
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 fresh produce. A product can sit in more than one.
Other fresh produce 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 Lancaster Foods LLC
The FDA opens one enforcement record per product code, so several of these are frequently one recall event. 12 other records name this firm.
All 13 records for Lancaster Foods LLC
All 2020 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.