FDA to ID Retailers Linked to Food Recalls

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will begin publishing the names of retailers involved in recalls in order to provide greater transparency and procedural efficiencies to better identify recalled foods and accelerate their removal from the market.

The move marks a change in course for the agency, which published draft guidance this week explaining the situations and circumstances of when it would make public the names of retailers linked to food involved in active recalls. The FDA said circumstances “will particularly apply in situations associated with the most serious recalls, where consumption of the food has a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.”

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture has ​long made retailer names available for all meat and poultry recalls, the FDA has traditionally resisted releasing such information in all but the rarest of cases because of “confidential commercial information” between retail supply chain trading partners.

The FDA’s draft guidance to establish a clear policy for recall notifications “is particularly important in situations where the product has already been linked to foodborne illness,” Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. “In these situations, providing retailer information can help consumers more quickly and accurately recognize recalled product and take action to avoid the product or seek assistance if they’ve already been exposed,” and arm them with actionable information to avoid potentially contaminated food products.

The agency’s commitment to advance the disclosure of retailer information for food recalls is “an important step ... [and] an area where we see more opportunity to improve the FDA’s role in protecting public health,” said Gottlieb. “The aim is to enable consumers to identify whether they have the recalled product and take appropriate actions,” including discarding the product or returning it to the place of purchase.

An important aspect of the new guidance is the agency’s pledge to “consistently publish retailer information where food that may be eaten by consumers cannot be identified as part of the recall by its packaging (e.g. for unpackaged produce).” In such instances, the FDA “may also disclose the names of retailers in certain geographic regions or particular online distributors where a packaged food is involved in an outbreak of foodborne illness.”

“We hope this new guidance by the agency represents a significant change in policy moving forward and will lead to the publication of retailer names in all cases where this information will be helpful to consumers,” said Gottlieb, noting that it’s equally “essential that the FDA devote the needed resources to obtain retailer information swiftly from industry during high-risk recalls.” Gottlieb said the agency has “already begun taking actions that align with this approach” in recent months, including when it released detailed retail distribution information by state during this summer’s recall of pre-cut melon associated with an outbreak of Salmonella.

Acknowledging that “identifying retail locations can be complex” due to the requirements of information from multiple supply chain parties, Gottlieb said, “we also know this information can be very important to consumers. Knowing where a recalled product was sold during the most dangerous food recalls can be the difference between a consumer going to the hospital or not. While we can’t prevent every illness, we can make sure we provide information to consumers to prevent more people from becoming sick from a recalled or hazardous food product.”

The Food Marketing Institute is among the industry trade associations that intends to participate in the draft guidelines' comment period. In a statement to WGB, FMI said: “No matter the root cause of a recall, food retailers take them seriously and act swiftly to remove the questioned product from commerce and alert their customers. Grocers work to ensure that the foods are taken care of while they are in their control.”

FMI said “food retailers remove products from store shelves often within 2 hours or less after receiving a recall notice,” as found in a diagram it produced 4 years ago detailing the anatomy of a recall.