12 replies to this topic

[Tony-C]

This is a big one, announced yesterday! 

 

The Hillshire Brands Company Recalls Corn Dog and Sausage On A Stick Products Due To Possible Extraneous Matter Contamination

 

The Hillshire Brands Company, a Haltom City, Tex. establishment, is recalling approximately 58,000,000 pounds of corn dog and sausage on a stick products that may be contaminated with extraneous material, specifically pieces of wood embedded in the batter, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

 

The corn dog and sausage on a stick products were packaged between March 17, 2025, and September 26, 2025. A list of the products subject to recall can be found here: [view product list]. The labels for the impacted products can be found here: [view labels].

 

The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST-582” or “P-894” printed on the packaging. These items were sold online and shipped to retail and food service locations nationwide. They were also sold to school districts and Department of Defense facilities nationwide. While the products were distributed to schools, it resulted from commercial sales and not part of food provided by the USDA for the National School Lunch Program.

 

The problem was discovered after the establishment received multiple consumer complaints, five of which involved injuries. The Hillshire Brands Company conducted an investigation and determined that the wooden sticks entered the production process prior to product battering.

 

Must be up there in the top ten of recalls in terms of quantity? Also this is 6 month's production, difficult to believe that they weren't aware of the problem before now.

 

Regards,

 

Tony

[GMO]

I have done some production with wooden skewers.  It's a challenge.  I never felt confident it wouldn't splinter.  I'm not sure if I'm right but reading this I'm wondering if there was a rework process they didn't properly risk assess which they're now realising was more of a problem than they thought.

[GreyeagleA]

Some of our products go onto bamboo skewers and I'm always concerned about them splintering as well.  I'm going to print off the article and post it on the food safety board in that plant, as a reminder to be careful when they are working with the skewers.

 

Since it's been six months of production, I wonder if the products were frozen and it's only taking until now for that inventory to start being used?

[SQFconsultant]

After all I've seen over my years in the business my take is that, they knew it, but decided to wait and see - and then all of a sudden they get an injury complaint and go ah oh, we are going to have to do something now.  I have no trust for these big food companies.

[GMO]

Some of our products go onto bamboo skewers and I'm always concerned about them splintering as well.  I'm going to print off the article and post it on the food safety board in that plant, as a reminder to be careful when they are working with the skewers.

 

Since it's been six months of production, I wonder if the products were frozen and it's only taking until now for that inventory to start being used?

 

Good idea.  Might be worth your team leaders / front line managers talking about it in your short interval control too.  Noticeboards are always so easy to ignore.

 

Good shout as well with frozen production.  I have no idea how it is being supplied but that's a risk for a lot of "chilled" Christmas production in the UK too.  Lots of it goes into freeze throughout the year then is brought out specifically for the season.  There have been a few howlers when suppliers realise their limited run is a complete f*%$ up.

 

 

After all I've seen over my years in the business my take is that, they knew it, but decided to wait and see - and then all of a sudden they get an injury complaint and go ah oh, we are going to have to do something now.  I have no trust for these big food companies.

 

20 years ago I'd have agreed.  Now I'd say it's more patchy, it certainly still happens but at least some leaders think of their own reputation.  I'm not sure poor senior leadership culture is exclusively a big company problem though.  One of my worst "ah it'll be ok, send it out" moments was in a small company and one of my best "no, we're not sure, let's hold it" was in a really big one.  But I don't think either of those are more than just anecdote because other cultural indicators were different.

 

What would be interesting is EU law (and retailed legislation in the UK) requires a FBO to initiate action not just if something is injurious to health but if they have reason to believe it is.  It's not to my knowledge been prosecuted as strongly as it has been worded but in cases in the UK or EU (not the US as this example) it would be fascinating to see a prosecution for cover up.

[kfromNE]

I have done some production with wooden skewers.  It's a challenge.  I never felt confident it wouldn't splinter.  I'm not sure if I'm right but reading this I'm wondering if there was a rework process they didn't properly risk assess which they're now realising was more of a problem than they thought.

 

We were also thinking - they didn't clean out the batter when sticks broke. So slivers were in the batter. 

[kconf]

Any thoughts on wooden beverage stirrers? I almost always see splinters on the side that could potentially fall into drinks. Sure better than plastic but is it safe? 

[kfromNE]

Any thoughts on wooden beverage stirrers? I almost always see splinters on the side that could potentially fall into drinks. Sure better than plastic but is it safe? 

 

The customer has to watch for that. In my experience, splinters won't come unless their is pressure on it (skewing items). We make kabobs manually. We have QC checks on the skewers. Employees are taught that if one breaks or slivers while using it - we scrap the skewer and items on it. 

[AZuzack]

The article on Meating Place said "The company’s investigation found that wooden sticks entered the production process before battering."  Sounds like the sticks weren't removed from reworked hotdogs.

[GMO]

The article on Meating Place said "The company’s investigation found that wooden sticks entered the production process before battering."  Sounds like the sticks weren't removed from reworked hotdogs.

 

Yeah... to me it sounds like they shouldn't have been reworking if that was the cause.  

 

I always think people are very lax about reworking risk.  In one site there was a proposal to rework, we used multiple allergens, the time taken to open each pack would have been a few seconds minimum (to do it safely) and there was no sieving the product possible for packaging shards.  

 

So you have a hazard of packaging and allergens and a pretty high likelihood of both.  The value of the product was pennies.  The profitability of the company was enormous. 

 

It was one of the few times I said a flat "absolutely no -king way!"  I wasn't even going to entertain the idea with a risk assessment.  But too many sites either have rework processes that the people in the HACCP team don't know about or just don't really consider that risk well enough.

[Scampi]

this sounds like 2 facilities as well--an absolute disgrace but no surprise given Tyson's track record

https://www.thedaily...-foods-history/

 

 

"The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST-582” or “P-894” printed on the packaging"

[G M]

this sounds like 2 facilities as well--an absolute disgrace but no surprise given Tyson's track record

https://www.thedaily...-foods-history/

 

 

"The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST-582” or “P-894” printed on the packaging"

 

One facility, the numbers don't always line up between red meat and poultry mark numbers.

 

https://www.fsis.usd...-brands-company

[Tony-C]

The article on Meating Place said "The company’s investigation found that wooden sticks entered the production process before battering."  Sounds like the sticks weren't removed from reworked hotdogs.

 

That came from the USDA’s recall notification as per my original post.

 

I agree it does sound suspiciously like rework which is very risky and now they are paying the price.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony