Warning issued after spate of food safety recalls

Law firm Roythornes issued the warning following 13 food and drink product recalls by companies such as Waitrose, Lidl and Tesco so far this month. 

Roythornes food and drink team head Peter Bennett highlighted Asda’s recall of sauce mix, which was labelled as curry flavour but actually contained cheese flavouring made of milk. ​

“This is yet another example of the growing importance of product recall planning,” ​Bennett said. ​

‘Dangers posed by food’​ ​

“Considering the dangers posed by food and allergens in particular, as is the case with this ASDA recall, it’s vital that everyone in the supply chain has tried and tested plans in place.”​ 

Despite recent recalls, nearly a fifth of food and drink businesses have failed to put in place plans to cope with a product recall, according to a Roythornes survey. 

Nearly 60% of businesses failed to include product recalls in their contractual agreements with suppliers, found the survey published in October. 

‘Sit up and take notice’​ ​

“We would strongly advise companies to sit up and take notice of these incidents, the high profile of negative publicity they generate and the potential risks they create and act accordingly,” ​Bennett said. 

Earlier this month Waitrose recalled mint sauce jars that may have contained shards of glass and Lidl recalled crayfish after finding “microbiological abnormalities”.​ 

Other recalls were prompted by mislabelling, for example Tesco withdrew packets of chocolate cookies because the presence of egg was not declared on the label. 

See below for a full list of recalls, together with the dates of announcements posted on the Food Standards Agency website.