How do Eggs get Recalled for Salmonella?

August 30th, 2010. By Kristine B

If recent news about egg and meat recalls has you nervous about eating, well, anything, you might be interested in learning how a food recall is initiated. These food recalls are designed to keep consumers safe and healthy, although sometimes they cause panic in people who worry that the food supply system isn’t as safe as it should be. I’m not going to comment on how safe the food system is or isn’t. All I can do in this Pleading Ignorance post is explain how the meat and egg recall process works.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) operates within the US Department of Agriculture. Its job is to inspect and regulate meat, poultry and processed egg products that are produced in federally inspected plants. Basically, the job of the FSIS is to make sure that any meat, egg or processed egg products are safe and properly labeled. Foods that don’t fall into the meat, egg or processed egg product categories are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A recall occurs when the product’s manufacturer or distributor voluntarily removes potentially hazardous food from the marketplace to protect the public’s health. All recalls are voluntary—even those initiated at the request of FSIS. If a company refuses to recall its products, the FSIS can seize the products.

Products can be recalled if they are believed to be hazardous to the public’s health (they can cause illness or death) or if they have been mislabeled (for example, if they contain ingredients not listed on the ingredients label).

According to the FSIS website (fsis.usda.gov), FSIS usually learns about hazardous or improperly labeled products from the manufacturer or distributor, from test results obtained by FSIS during its sampling program, from FSIS field inspectors or program investigators or through data submitted by other agencies. Once FSIS learns about a hazardous or improperly labeled product, the agency begins a preliminary investigation to determine whether or not the product should be recalled.

There are three classes of recall based on the risk to the public’s health:

Class I: there is reasonable probability that eating the food will cause illness or death (for example, the food is contaminated with E. coli bacterium);

Class II: there is a remote probability of adverse health affects from eating the food (for example, if a product contains an ingredient not included on the ingredients list but that can cause an allergic reaction); or

Class III: there are no health consequences from eating the food (for example, a product contains excess water, not included on the ingredients list, but the water will not cause any health problems).

People who are concerned about the lack of food safety might be happy to hear that a food safety bill is scheduled for a Senate vote in September. The bill, called the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, would give the FDA power to issue recalls and increase the frequency of factory inspections.

The USDA is not affected by the Food Safety Modernization Act; however, as of July 9, new rules gave the FDA power to inspect shell eggs once they leave the breaking facility (where they are broken and pasteurized).

Tags: Egg Recall, Food Poisoning, Pleading Ignorance, Salmonella

This was posted on Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Pleading Ignorance . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.