TECH-SAVVY CONSUMERS now have ways to find out about product recalls without having to wait for alerts from retailers, manufacturers or the media.
For example, Purchase Decision Network, New York, last December integrated real-time recall information from the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture into Shopper, a 99-cent iPhone shopping assistant application.
Shopper allows iPhone users to create shopping lists, and with the recall feature, if a consumer puts an item on her list that's associated with a recall, she will automatically see the warning information for that product.
Another company, Agorasys, Sacramento, Calif., has developed RecallCheck, a $5 application that allows users of Android-based mobile phones with cameras to scan bar codes of food products and automatically query Agorasys' database to see if the item has been subject to an FDA recall.
Launched in April 2009, RecallCheck has between 50 and 100 users, said Agorasys spokesman Scott Charles. It can be found on the Google Android Market. A BlackBerry version is available by request.
And last month, the Washington-based Partnership for Food Safety Education launched a recall primer for consumers on www.recallbasics.com. The site explains how to learn about food recalls, how to identify the type of food product in a recall notice, and what actions to take at home. Consumers are advised to match identifying marks on a food product they have — such as product name, brand, container code and container size or weight — with recall notice details.
“Getting consumers to pay attention to news about recalls isn't the hard part,” said William K. Hallman, a psychologist and director of the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. “Getting them to take the step of actually looking for recalled food products in their home is the real challenge.”
Consumers can also sign up to receive recall notices by email at www.recalls.gov.
