When food products are recalled, what happens to them?

Question

If they are contaminated or infected then I can understand that they must be destroyed, presumably incinerated. However, if it's just the packaging that's not quite right, what happens? Recently some chocolate cream eggs were recalled because the packaging did not specify that nuts may have been used in the factory where they were made. Did they get destroyed or was the chocolate reused?

Answer 1

I work in a food factory and in the case that you mentioned they would take the eggs from the old boxes or foils and put them in the correct boxes(or foils) explaining about the allergen situation, making sure that they'd taken note of which batch(es) that they'd repackaged. They may even just have put another label on them explaining about the nuts situation.

It also depends on the "risk" level of food that you are dealing with. Low risk is a completely cooked sweet ambient product. Medium risk is a dairy product like cream or butter that is put onto a product uncooked (eg butter cream brandy butter). High risk is mainly for meat and poultry products. A low or medium risk product that has very little chance of contaminating anything else would simply be thrown in the bin if nothing else could be done about it. A high risk product would have to be incinerated because it may affect other products.

If its thought to be too expensive to replace all the packaging they may sent the lot "to market" to be sold cheaply on market stalls and a new batch made. It depende on the most cost effective solution at the time.

If a product is just one low risk ingredient like a flapjack, pastry base, biscuit, just chocolate (not mixed with cream or anything) they would "crumb" that product and use it bit by bit in future products.

Re dating or recoding products is known to go on in all food factories. As is freezing food, telling you you cant freeze it so as they can put a longer shelf life on it (did you know that if you picked an orange off the tree you can freeze it)

Im going to shut up or I'll put you off eating everything.

Answer 2

It would depend on the reason for the recall. I remember from a great many years back when I worked in a dairy, we made a batch of butter, around half a ton, which when tested was found to be slightly short on butterfat content and slightly over on moisture. The product could not be sold, although a few packs had got out. The whole batch lay in my stores for several weeks while management were deciding what to do with it. Eventually the butter was distributed among the dairy staff, free. It couldn't be sold to them as that would have been illegal.
Had this been contaminated in any way then the entire batch would have been destroyed, by whatever means were available.

Answer 3

Doubtful that they would be incinerated. Companies try every trick in the book to get at least some value out of their products, even condemned ones.

I knew a food inspector who went round to a Chinese place, condemned a couple of hundred pounds of chicken because it was spoiled. He oversaw them spreading the red dye on the meat and placing it a dumpster. But, something told him to return. About thirty minutes later the staff was removing the thrown out meat and washing off the dye to use in their restaurant. They were shut down. But this sort of thing happens all the time but just isn't caught.

On recalled products, unless it's really something that's going to be a deadly poison, chances are it's going into animal feed.

For products such as chocolate which is simply mislabled, I would think that it has a shelf-life and would be too old to repackage. And more importantaly, it would be too costly to hire workers to remove the wrappings and reprocess the product for sale.

Answer 4

The chocolate cold not be reused because the manufacturer would not have the required batch tracability. Most recalls that are not destroyed are treated as the out of date products. Cakes, chocolate etc products are usually sold as pig feed.

Answer 5

Does the chocolate get reused??? This gives me a mental pictuire of a poor man carefully shelling the eggs for the chocolate they are made of. Now I'm wanting to know what happens to the whites and yolks?

Have to stop here as the nurse is coming and she hits me with a wet bootlace when I'm being bad...........

Answer 6

It mostly goes to landfill or incineration. If its been taken out of the food chain, it can't go back in, officially. Some stuff can go to animal feed, but economic factors mitigate against this. A supermarket near my house caught fire at night, no-one was at work, but the damage was confined to the fridge plant. smoke had got over everything on the shop floor,though, so everything that wasn't in tins or tough plastic containers was skipped. The tins etc, went to a specialist firm who cleaned & re-labelled them, as part of the insurance write-off.

Answer 7

Destroyed

Answer 8

well that all depends.. I've driven a truck for 16 years. I've seen all sorts of things. Depending on the shipper and their policies. Most places destroy food items. Some places give them to homeless shelters. If their damaged during transit. The company hauling them pays for them. Then in turn either try to re-sell the undamaged portions. Or claim them on their taxes as a loss and give to a homeless shelter. Best I can tell ya...

Answer 9

The food is taken back to the company that makes the food and sometimes they throw the food away depending onto whether or not if the food is still good or bad otherwise they may have to repackage the food item in the right box and ship it back to the store.

Answer 10

according to data in the computer, bad meat is cooked and put in products that contain meat and resold to you and me. check it out.