Oftentimes when a product recall warrants a health risk rating of “High” by the U.S. Government the food contains something dangerous. Sometimes it’s foreign matter, like wood or rubber, which could cause some serious issues if consumes. However, unintended ingredients can be just as dangerous, especially if a person is allergic to whatever accidentally found its way into a particular food product.
That’s exactly what happened with a whole bunch of frozen meatballs from Home Market Foods, Inc., which just issued a recall for a whopping 53,217 pounds of frozen meatballs. Why such a huge recall? The hunks of meat don’t contain weird foreign matter, but rather cranberries.
The issue seems to be that Home Market Foods, which owns a number of brands including Cooked Perfect meatballs, got its lines crossed and included “Cranberry Stuffed Meatballs” in packaging labeled “Homestyle Meatballs All Natural.” Someone with a cranberry allergy may purchase what they believe is a bag of plain meatballs only to find that they’re actually packed with the berries.
A consumer alerted the brand to the mislabeling issue, which affects 48-oz. bags of the meatballs with a “Best If Used By” date of 7/02/20. The establishment number on the bags is “EST. 2727” according to a bulletin released by the USDA.
The alert carries a health risk of “High” as well as a “Class I” rating which is described as:
This is a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.
Food allergies are no joke, and if you have a bag of the mislabeled meatballs you can retrieve the contact info for the company via the official recall notice.
