If ever there was a time for people to start dieting, it might be now, as food news has been nothing but bad with new recalls announced daily. The latest food recall has been declared by Smithfield Packing Company and much like other recent recalls, it involves impurities being found in food products. In this case, Smithfield is recalling more than 38,000 pounds of pork sausage because two consumers have alerted the company about finding pieces of plastic in their food.
According to a report by CNN, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service believes that the plastic found in this particular lot of sausage meat can be traced to gloves used by Smithfield employees during the production and packing of the meat. Regardless of the source of the plastic, the presence of such impurities could lead to consumers becoming ill at the very least, and even possibly choking while eating the sausage products. Fortunately, neither of the consumers who reported the plastic pieces suffered injuries or illnesses from ingestion.
This recall is limited to 11 states and the District of Columbia, as consumers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas may be affected by this recall if they’ve purchased any Gwaltney mild pork roll 1-pound packages with a use-by date of March 12, 2013 and the establishment number Est. 221-A on the Department of Agriculture’s inspection mark. Additionally, these sausage products came in cases with the code 78533109741.
Smithfield is currently urging consumers who may have purchased the Gwaltney products to contact the company immediately at (800) 276-6158 for additional information and to redeem a coupon for a replacement product. Before disposing of the product, the company may request that it be retrieved for examination and study.
This recall comes hot on the heels of a similar recall by Kellogg’s, as the food giant recalled its Special K Red Berries product because of concerns over the presence of glass fragments. Additionally, European food and health agencies are dealing with growing threats of horsemeat contaminations in frozen and refrigerated beef dishes – like the Nestlé Buitoni raviolis – and while that threat hasn’t hit American products, it has at least raised awareness and concern.