It’s not every day that you see a recall notice because a company found bugs in their product. Certainly we’ve all heard scattered anecdotes about people finding insects in something they bought at a store. We also know that keeping pests out of food in a large food processing operation has to be a major challenge. Still, if you’re a company, you would rather not deal with having to tell the public that you’ve got bugs in your soup, even if that’s probably less of a health hazard than E. coli or Listeria.
Nevertheless, that’s exactly what happened to Trader Joe’s on July 27, 2023. The grocer announced on its website that containers of the popular Trader Joe’s Unexpected Broccoli Cheddar Soup with use by dates between 7/18/23 and 9/15/23 may contain insects. This is the second recall by the grocer in the last three days, fresh on the heels of a cookie recall on July 25.
According to the FDA, the soup’s supplier is Winter Gardens Quality Foods, Inc. out of Pennsylvania. (Side note: at the time of this post, the supplier’s website was down.) The FDA identifies the broccoli as the culprit, noting that the product has insects in the frozen broccoli florets.
We did notice one discrepancy between the TJ’s and FDA notes. TJ’s indicates that all of its soups during that time are recalled, while the FDA limits their recall to seven states: Florida, Illinois, California, Texas, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. We could guess at a few possible reasons for this difference, including Trader Joe’s being proactive on the PR front. In any event, the grocer has removed all potentially affected products from its shelves.
You can find the full Trader Joe’s press release below.
To Our Valued Customers:
We have been alerted by our supplier of Trader Joe’s Unexpected Broccoli Cheddar Soup (SKU# 68470) that product with Use By dates 07/18/23 – 09/15/23 may contain insects.
No known adverse health effects have been reported to date, and all potentially affected product has been removed from sale and destroyed.
If you purchased or received any donations of Unexpected Broccoli Cheddar Soup, please discard the product or return it to any Trader Joe’s for a full refund.
Customers with questions may contact Trader Joe’s Customer Relations at (626) 599-3817 [Monday through Friday, 6:00 am to 6:00 pm Pacific Time] or send us an email.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
