Millions of kilograms of food have been pulled from the country’s shelves in recent months due to health concerns.

The recalls include E. coli linked to specific products and listeria linked to various meat products.

In October, Oregon-based BrucePac recalled about 11.7 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products from its Oklahoma facility because they may be contaminated with listeria. No confirmed reports of side effects have been reported, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS).

Earlier this year Boar’s Head recalled 71 products because of listeria problems. On Thursday, health officials announced that the Listeria outbreak linked to the recall has ended. Ten people died and 61 people fell ill in 19 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were more brands of bagged carrots off the shelves due to E. coli in an ongoing recall, and the company that makes the sliced ​​onions for McDonald’s Quarter Pounders has issued a recall in October. There is at least one death reported for each of these cases.

Food is recalled for reasons that could cause illness or injury, such as when it is contaminated or mislabeled. To prevent recalls, there are several safeguards that extend from growers in the field to government regulators.

Abby Snyder, a professor of microbial food safety at Cornell University, said these recent large recalls do not reflect a change in the overall safety of the food supply. Over the past 20 years, U.S. food agencies have gotten better at detecting bacteria in food, she said.

“That’s why we’re able to recognize even relatively small outbreaks now because of improvements in disease surveillance,” Snyder said.

She said large recalls happen occasionally, mostly due to unintentional food safety failures — and sometimes that means multiple recalls.

“We’re in a period where several things seem to have happened in relatively short succession over the last few months,” Snyder said.

How does this year compare?

The two main entities that oversee food safety in the US there is the Department of Agriculture, which regulates certain meat, poultry, and egg products, and the Food and Drug Administration, which manages all other foods.

From October 2023 to September 2024, FDA issued 179 withdrawals for food and cosmetic products under its highest classificationwhich it defines as the possibility of “serious adverse health consequences or death”. That’s up from 145 cases a year earlier, but down from 185 withdrawals with the same classification in fiscal year 2022.

So far in October and November this year, there have been 18 high-risk withdrawals, according to the data.

An FDA spokesman said in a statement that the nation’s food supply “remains one of the safest in the world.”

Meanwhile, the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service has issued about half the number of product recalls so far this year compared to last year, according to a spokesman. There have been 30 withdrawals this year as of Nov. 12, compared to 65 withdrawals last year, according to a statement.

These recalls are mostly voluntary, unless a company refuses to recall “adulterated or misbranded product.” according to its website.

“FSIS remains committed to reviewing all of its food safety policies to continue to protect public health through science-based inspection methods and policies,” the spokesperson wrote.

Prevention of health risks

Byron Chaves, a professor and extension specialist in food safety at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said food safety is complicated because the food supply is complicated.

“So when it comes to protecting and protecting the food supply, there are many different facets, right?” Chavez said.

In the food safety puzzle, Chaves said everyone — the federal government, state governments, processing companies, growers, retailers and consumers — has a piece. The main tools are inspection and enforcement by the federal government and microbial interventions and supply control by industry, he said.

Snyder said modern food safety programs don’t rely primarily on testing because to find 100 percent of contaminated food, 100 percent of the food produced would have to be sampled. Instead, the programs also include preventive measures.

Most contaminated food doesn’t make it to the store, but it does happen, Chaves said. He said existing industry practices usually work.

“And because it works and there are robust and statistically sound sampling plans that many or most establishments actually apply, then they are able to catch contamination in a product or on a food contact surface before the product to leave the unit, correct. ?” Chaves said. “If it weren’t for that, we’d see hundreds and hundreds of withdrawals.”

Anna Pope

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Harvest Public Media

Pulling the products

Large-scale recalls can occur when a lot of products are contaminated in a single event, Chaves said. For example, a contaminated ingredient ends up in multiple products, or there is a contaminated food contact surface that multiple products pass through.

“At the end of the day, microbes and chemicals are just microbes and chemicals, they’re not intentional about what they’re doing, right?” Chavez said. “So that’s where food regulations and food safety education, food safety awareness becomes so important.”

Recent changes have helped increase the safety of the food system, said Jaydee Hanson, director of policy at the Center for Food Safety. For example, The Food Modernization Law signed in 2011 gave the FDA the authority to remove products from the market.

“What this has done is encourage companies, as soon as they know there’s a problem, to pull things off the market,” Hanson said. “Because they don’t want to be seen as a company that the FDA is shutting down for selling unsafe food.”

Still, Hanson said he would like to see improvements, such as more distance separating vegetable and meat operations. But that might be hard as water is increasingly rare and producers face extreme weather such as drought, he said.

Hanson also said that higher speeds on the production line can cause food safety and health problems for line workers.

“You know, when half a cow is walking past somebody every two seconds, there’s not a lot of time to visually inspect it,” Hanson said.

When certain recalls occur, Synder said the agencies will list the time frame for producing a product. She said the time frame is based on when a product is manufactured, distributed, sold, consumed and when cases of illness begin.

“And if, for example, it’s contaminated with a pathogen, there’s a certain amount of time before symptoms appear, and then the person has to seek medical treatment,” Snyder said. “The case has to be recognized, the pathogen identified, entered into the surveillance system, and then the FDA has to, for example, conduct its investigation.”

Even though contaminated food isn’t everywhere, Hanson said people should heed warnings about the food they eat.

Washing hands, using a meat thermometer, avoiding cross-contamination and returning recalled products are steps consumers can take, Snyder said. But there are limitations, she said, and emphasized the important role food agencies play in detecting outbreaks, conducting investigations and quickly removing products from the market.

This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Mediaa collaboration of Midwest public media newsrooms. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.