Florimont, Inc. recalled this product and the FDA reported the enforcement action on 3 September 2014 as Class I. The recall was initiated by the firm. Candy was made using carob powder that is currently under recall by the direct supplier due to 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
Tiny Isle Chocolate Truffles Hawaiian Sea Salt: Gluten Free, Raw, Vegan; individual 1 oz. candies, Tiny Isle 5915 Olohena Road, Unit H Kapaa, HI 96746
Reason for recall
Candy was made using carob powder that is currently under recall by the direct supplier due to potential Salmonella contamination.
Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit
Product codes
UPC for single truffles: 11386711886 No lot codes or expiry dates
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 14 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 14 separate recalls, which almost every published figure does, overstates it by a factor of 14. 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 14 of them.
The recall ran for 3 months, from 25 July 2014 to termination on 4 November 2014. 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 6 weeks after the firm began the recall.
Recalls of a snack or confectionery product run a median of 7 months, so this one was shorter 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.
