Food Recalls

I just saw a notice about a massive food recall: 216,238 pounds.

This is a fairly big recall. Approximately 6 tractor-trailers worth of product. That food is likely all going to get thrown away.

One sees these cringe-inducing recall notices so often. If the recall happened to anyone but a giant producer, it would probably wipe them out.

The reason for the recall is typical: the label on the product doesn't correspond to what's in the product. E.g. there's some whey or soy or milk or peanuts in the product, when the label does doesn't list soy (a known allergen) milk (a known allergen) or peanuts (a known allergen) in the list of ingredients.

Typically there's a statement in the recall notice that nobody got sick from the misbranded product.

It really is horrific how much product gets recalled, due to one stupid reason or another. Most consumers don't benefit from this. If anything, the regulatory system just costs them money, in the form of unnecessary and expensive recalls that don't improve things.

It all makes me wonder, why don't the labels on meat products just state, as a matter of course: "may contain whey, milk, soy and or peanuts"? The product most likely won't contain those things - but at least the packers would be able to avoid recalls if any of those 4 major allergens accidentally found their way into the products.