Holiday White Peppermint Hostess Twinkies, cream-filled snack cakes, Net Wt. 13.02 oz.
Hostess Brands, LLC recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 1 March 2017 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. Product contains an ingredient that was recalled by a supplier because it may be contaminated with Salmonella.
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
Holiday White Peppermint Hostess Twinkies, cream-filled snack cakes, Net Wt. 13.02 oz. (369 g), UPC 888109111571.
UPC
888109111571
Reason for recall
Product contains an ingredient that was recalled by a supplier because it may be contaminated with Salmonella.
Nationwide. There was no foreign/government/military distribution.
Initiated
9 January 2017
Reported by FDA
1 March 2017
Terminated
1 December 2017
Firm notified by
Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
Product codes
Batch and Best by Date per Material No. 701404: D093024000 12/4/2016 D100124000 12/5/2016 D100824000 12/12/2016 D101324000 12/17/2016 D101424000 12/18/2016 D102624000 12/30/2016 D102724000 12/31/2016 D110224000 1/6/2017 D110324000 1/7/2017 D110424000 1/8/2017 D111124000 1/15/2017 D111224000 1/16/2017 D112124000 1/25/2017; AND 701442 D100824000 12/12/2016 D102624000 12/30/2016 D110224000 1/6/2017 D111124000 1/15/2017 D112124000 1/25/2017
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 11 months, from 9 January 2017 to termination on 1 December 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 7 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of milk or a dairy product run a median of 7 months, so this one was longer than usual for its category. Dairy recalls split between pathogen contamination in products that skipped or under-ran pasteurisation and undeclared milk in products that should never have contained it, which is the same allergen viewed from two directions.
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.
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)(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.
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.
