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Nov 10, 2024

What To Know About The Recent Cheese Recalls

Pre-made turkey sandwiches sold under three different brand names have been recalled in connection to a potential listeria contamination in soft cheese products announced earlier this week by the

Pre-made turkey sandwiches sold under three different brand names have been recalled in connection to a potential listeria contamination in soft cheese products announced earlier this week by the Savencia Cheese company, the latest in a series of listeria scares that have prompted recalls.

Soft cheeses have been recalled due to potential listeria contamination.

CIBUS Fresh on Friday announced it would recall its autumn turkey sandwiches sold under the CIBUS Fresh, Jack & Olive and Sprig and Sprout labels because they contain Glenview Farms Spreadable Brie, one of seven cheeses impacted by the Savencia recall earlier this week.

That recall, first announced Monday and expanded on Tuesday, was for brie and camembert products sold under the brand names of Aldi, Supreme, La Bonne Vie, Market Basket and Glenview Farms, as well as industrial brie wheels.

All cheese products that have been recalled have a best by date of Dec. 24, except the potentially contaminated Glenview Farms Spreadable Bries, which have a Jan. 13 best-by date.

The recall was spurred after Savencia Cheese found some of its equipment to be potentially contaminated with listeria, but the products had "limited regional distribution in the United States" and there have been no confirmed reports of anyone becoming ill after consuming the products.

The FDA recall did not expand on where exactly the contaminated products were sold, but Aldi said in its notice that stores in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri carried the impacted cheeses.

More information about the recalled products, including the UPC numbers, can be found on the FDA's website.

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A spate of listeria warnings has touched frozen breakfast foods, poultry products and smoked salmon and other products over the last month, following an outbreak in Boar’s Head deli meat over the summer that killed 10 people and sickened dozens more. The discovery of products that tested positive for listeria at a BrucePac facility in Oklahoma led to the recall of nearly 12 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry items in early October, and Fresh Express issued a follow up recall of salad kits containing BrucePac meats. Since then, a recall of frozen waffles and pancakes from TreeHouse Foods impacted dozens of brands, Costco recalled its smoked salmon and Sprouts Farmers Market issued a recall of its Chicken Street Taco Meal kits, all due to potential listeria contamination. Nobody has been made sick from any of the recalled products, outside of the Boar’s Head outbreak.

Darin Detwiler, a food safety adviser and Northeastern University professor, explained to Eater that an increasing reliance on pre-packaged, cold storage items in the food supply is leading to more listeria contamination. Impacted products with longer shelf lives have more time to grow listeria as they sit on the shelves, he said, and the longer things are kept in storage in stores or at home, the more listeria can grow (the listeria bacteria can survive refrigeration and even freezing, making it difficult to eradicate once found). President-elect Donald Trump also deregulated parts of the food safety system during his first term, which led to a fall in Food and Drug Administration enforcement, Bloomberg noted. After lead-tainted cinnamon found its way into millions of applesauce pouches earlier this year, The New York Times blamed "an overstretched F.D.A. and a food-safety law that gives companies, at home and abroad, wide latitude on what toxins to look for and whether to test." Following the deadly outbreak of listeria linked to Boar’s Head products, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, said the USDA, which oversees meat and egg production, "took no action" despite finding serious violations at the company's facilities.

Listeria is the foodborne illness contracted by those who eat food contaminated with the listeria monocytogene bacteria, most often found in processed meats and unpasteurized milk products. The bacteria spreads easily among deli equipment, surfaces, hands and food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and people who eat contaminated food can develop a listeriosis infection. Such an illness doesn’t make most people seriously sick, but it can disproportionately impact people older than 65, newborns and pregnant women. Pregnant women are 18 times more likely to get listeriosis than other healthy adults.

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