The Pictsweet Company recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 21 September 2016 as Class I. The recall was initiated by the firm. Possible Listeria Monocytogenes contamination in bulk vegetables supplied by CRF Frozen Foods, LLC used in manufacturing several Pictsweet products.
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
Kroger(R) Mixed Vegetable Meal Ready Sides, (1) NET WT 5 LB (2.26kg), UPC 1111089406 and (2) NET WT 12 OZ. (340g), UPC 1111089735, DISTRIBUTED BY THE KROGER CO., CINCINNATI, OH 45202,
UPC
1111089406
Reason for recall
Possible Listeria Monocytogenes contamination in bulk vegetables supplied by CRF Frozen Foods, LLC used in manufacturing several Pictsweet products.
Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
Product codes
(1) UPC 1111089406 BEST IF USED BY: Jan 2016 through May 2016; with Mfg Code ### # K # # (2) UPC 1111089735 BEST IF USED BY: Jan 2016 through Oct 2017; with Mfg Code ### # K # #
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 12 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 12 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 12. 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 12 of them.
The recall ran for 15 months, from 6 May 2016 to termination on 3 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 FDA published the enforcement report 5 months after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a prepared meal or sandwich run a median of 6 months, so this one was longer than usual for its category. Prepared meals concentrate every other category's hazards into one package: they are assembled from many components, handled after any cook step, sold ready to eat, and carry an ingredient list long enough to lose an allergen in.
Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium that grows at refrigeration temperature, which is why it dominates recalls of ready-to-eat foods that are never cooked again before they are eaten.
A preventive controls plan covers Listeria 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)(3)
Sanitation controls: the controls on cleaning food-contact surfaces and on preventing cross-contact and cross-contamination from insanitary objects, people and equipment.
21 CFR 117.165(a)(3)
Environmental monitoring: testing the processing environment for an environmental pathogen, required when a ready-to-eat food is exposed to the environment before packaging.
21 CFR 117.150
Corrective actions: what a facility does when a preventive control was not properly implemented, including identifying and correcting the problem and evaluating the food for safety.
Other prepared meals and sandwiches 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)(3) 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.
