Hello, we sell dried herbs and spices and we just had a customer report that they found live insects in product from us. We still have some of the raw material in stock and when inspected, one of 5 boxes was found to have visible insects. We have segregated all material and will be refunding the customer who complained. We are in the process of investigating but believe the material has insect eggs from the supplier (boxes were sealed and not opened in our facility before the inspection so we do not think this is an issue in our facility). Everything has been pulled which contained this material, however there is some product that had already gone out to customers.
We are a small facility and hand pack our products, so chances are the product that went out were made from a box with no issues, as we only found insects in one of the 5 remaining boxes, also our staff is well trained and would report any visible issues during packaging. However, should we still issue a recall for those items? And if we did issue a recall, do we still notify CFIA, SQF and our CB if its not a food safety issue
There are different opinions with the staff here as to whether a recall is necessary since it is not a food safety issue. Anyone have any insight?