Yes, Food Recalls Rose in 2024. Here’s What Comes Next
Food recalls appear to be skyrocketing in the U.S. in 2024. In listeria outbreak making headlines and E. coli The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a total of 1,908 food and cosmetic recalls during fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024) due to concerns about undeclared allergens and other possible contaminants.
FDA returns food and cosmetic recalls to Category 1, but higher number of recalls in 2024 due to listeria outbreak boar head and Bruce Parkerresulting in the recall of more than 15 million pounds of ready-to-eat food.
The number of food recalls in 2024 isn’t at an all-time high, but it’s higher than in recent years, so we spoke to food safety experts to get some answers.
Here’s the recent history of food recalls and what to expect through 2025.
Will the number of food recalls be higher in 2024 than in 2023?
Yes. You didn’t imagine the increase in alerts about food recalls. according to Data from FDAIn fiscal year 2024, there were more than 1,900 food/cosmetic recalls.
Here’s what it’s been like over the past five years:
- exist 2023, have 1,563 Food/cosmetic recalls.
- exist 2022, have 1,809 people Food/cosmetic recalls.
- exist 2021, have 1,026 Food/cosmetic recalls.
- exist 2020, have 1,536 Food/cosmetic recalls.
- exist 2019, have 2,046 Food/cosmetic recalls.
This means that the number of food/cosmetic recalls in 2024 is the highest since 2019. But that’s not all. Despite the increase in 2024, food/cosmetic recalls remain lower than in any of the seven years prior to 2020, and more than half of them were significantly lower. For example, there were 3,609 food/cosmetic recalls in 2017, nearly double the number in 2024.
This chart shows the number of food/cosmetic recalls that have occurred in each fiscal year in the United States since 2012.
What’s behind the 2024 food recalls?
At least 61 people became ill and 10 died during the Boar’s Head recall, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventionmaking it the deadliest epidemic in 2024. And the number of people getting sick from contaminated deli meat is believed to be much higher.
“Recalls involving listeria are more difficult simply because of the species of bacteria it is,” said Jaydee Hanson, the company’s policy director. Center for Food Safetytold CNET.
More than 7 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry have been recalled due to contamination. A newly released one USDA Review Linking “inadequate sanitation measures” at a Virginia factory to the outbreak.
According to the review, the facility had “multiple instances of non-compliance with sanitation standard operating procedures and sanitation performance standards,” including product residue left on equipment from use the day before. The USDA review also points to the need for greater government inspections and oversight. Boar’s Head told USA TODAY The company is currently working to roll out an “enhanced company-wide food safety program.”
Hansen said that while hygiene practices and issues led to food recalls in 2024, there were other factors to consider, including climate change and the location of the farms where the food was grown.
“Vegetables, in particular, don’t get a lot of scrutiny,” Hansen said, “and we have some very large meat production plants that, in my opinion, are too close to the vegetable plants.”
He added: “If you pump water into vegetable plots that are drained from meatpacking plants, then the water you pump into vegetable plots will contain salmonella, E. coli and other substances.”
Organic whole bags of carrots and baby carrots sold by Grimmway Farms and distributed in multiple stores across the U.S. are being recalled due to a 2024 E. coli outbreak.
Another major listeria-related recall involves Nearly 12 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat It is manufactured at a factory in Durant, Oklahoma. according to food safety newsready-to-eat meat is handled much more intensively within a facility than raw meat, increasing the chance of contamination.
Hansen said he believes “the need for convenience and more centralized production of these foods” is another reason for the widespread recall.
“Every little village used to have a butcher’s shop making liverwurst from locally caught animals, but you didn’t spread that throughout the country,” he said. “Now, if you have just a few companies producing a lot of food, when something goes wrong, it spreads across the country.”
Will recall rates increase in 2025?
It’s too early to tell how the recall will play out in the new year, and with a new president taking office, there’s more uncertainty. One factor contributing to this is the Trump administration’s order this week to suspend communications with the FDA, CDC and other government agencies because report Reported by The Washington Post.
“The Department of Health and Human Services has suspended mass communications and communications that are not directly related to the emergency or critical to maintaining health,” Stephanie Spear, principal deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told CNET in an email. Public appearances. “This is a brief pause to allow the new team to establish a process for review and prioritization. There will be exceptions for announcements deemed mission critical by HHS departments, but they will be made on a case-by-case basis. Situation Release.”
Communications suspension to last until February 1, NPR report. It’s unclear whether the FDA’s current protocol for alerting the public about food recalls will change. It’s unclear whether the new administration will change any food safety protocols.
“The FDA and USDA have great tools right now to (control the outbreak), but the big question is whether they have the funding to do what needs to be done,” Hansen said.
Another factor to consider is immigration, he said.
national agricultural workers opinion poll Data from 2019-2020 shows that approximately 44% of farm workers in the United States are undocumented. Hansen said mass evictions called for by President Donald Trump could lead to labor shortages, which could lead to “trying to find more labor-saving ways to grow crops.”
“A lot of it depends on how much money Congress gives to the FDA and USDA to make sure things are properly inspected,” Hansen said.
How to protect yourself from foodborne illness
It is important to be aware of recalls when they become public and to take necessary precautions when handling recalled food, such as immediately discarding and cleaning any surfaces it may have come into contact with.
You can also start buying from local farmers so you can trace your food directly to where it comes from. It’s also important to make sure you always cook meat to the recommended temperature to kill any possible bacteria.
“If you’re cooking meat, always pay attention to safe temperatures,” Hansen says. “one good thermometer Will cost you about $10. Buy it and use it. Your emergency room copay will be far more than that thermometer. ”
