Asher's Chocolate Co. White Confectionery Coating (38657) Assorted Flip Flops; 2 oz.
Ashers Chocolates/Lewistown, Inc. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 26 April 2017 as Class II. The recall was initiated by the firm. Product has the potential to 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
Asher's Chocolate Co. White Confectionery Coating (38657) Assorted Flip Flops; 2 oz. (24/box) Containing: (14705) Flip Flop Pink; (14706) Flip Flop with Orange; (14707) Flip Flop with Lt. Blue; (14708) Flip Flop with Purple;
Reason for recall
Product has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.
AL; AR; CA ; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IL; IN; KY; LA ; MA ; MD ME; MI; MN; MO; MT; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA ; RI ; SC; SD; TN; TX; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY
Initiated
2 September 2016
Reported by FDA
26 April 2017
Terminated
17 August 2017
Firm notified by
Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
Product codes
Lot #'s: 000337576;
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 is one of 87 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 87 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 87. 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 87 of them.
The recall ran for 11 months, from 2 September 2016 to termination on 17 August 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 distribution pattern names 39 states, and the FDA published the enforcement report 8 months after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a snack or confectionery product run a median of 7 months, so this one was longer than usual for its category. Snacks and confectionery recall for allergens more than for anything else, because a chocolate or a coated snack passes through shared equipment carrying milk, soy and nuts, and the label is the only control between them and the consumer.
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.
Other snacks and confectionery 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)(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.
