Blount Fine Foods recalls chicken soup due to misbranding and an undeclared allergen

WASHINGTON, April 4, 2019 – Blount Fine Foods, a Fall River, Mass. establishment, is recalling an undetermined amount of ready-to-eat chicken soup products due to misbranding and an undeclared allergen, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The product contains milk, a known allergen, which is not declared on the product label.

The institutional, frozen “Chicken & Poblano Pepper Soup” items, which were labeled incorrectly as “Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup,” were produced on Jan. 24, 2019. The following product is subject to recall:

8-lb. cases containing 2 bags of “HOMESTYLE CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP” with a “USE BY 01242020 LOT 01242019 28A” lot code. The plastic bags inside the case are labeled as “Chicken & Poblano Pepper Soup” but do not identify a list of ingredients.

The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST. P-19449A” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These items were shipped to restaurant distributor locations nationwide.

The problem was discovered when the firm received a consumer complaint.

There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider.

FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers’ or restaurants’ refrigerators or freezers. Consumers or restaurants who have purchased these products are urged not to consume or serve them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.

Blount has issued the following statement:

“Blount Fine Foods issued a limited recall of foodservice product through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) today. The subject of the recall is 100 cases of chicken noodle soup sold only to institutions thought the restaurant supply chain Restaurant Depot. The suspected cases were distributed to no more than 23 locations around the country.

The soup in the cases was produced safely, but one customer found a bag of chicken pablano soup in a case labeled “chicken noodle,” which does not list the allergen, milk. Blount has checked all of the stores that received the lot of cases in question, as well as its own inventory, and has not found another case with the problem. It has issued the voluntary recall to ensure that no person with a dairy allergy be served the soup.

The company takes food safety and product labeling very seriously, and has initiated an investigation to understand what happened, and implement corrective actions immediately to prevent it from happening in the future.

None of the stores that received the recalled cases are located in New England.

Blount creates up to a million pounds of soup per day in Fall River its Fall River, Mass. headquarters.

Restaurant Depot is an outlet that sells to commercial accounts only.”

Consumers with questions about the recall can contact Blount Fine Foods Customer Care Team at (866) 674-4519 or email: recalls@blountfinefoods.com. Members of the media with questions about the recall can contact Larry Marchese, Managing Partner at Legion Thirteen, at (617) 733-8899.