Peanut: Cumin Recall (The Big Thread)

[guess]

Nothing will clear the air until the process is elucidated.  I am all for the food industry regulating itself as much as possible but "it" hit the fan and we have to perform our own damage control right now. 

This won't happen but what I need is:

• bill of lading(s)
• test results

I can't read the test results for diddly squat but CM can.  The warnings themselves are dangerous interchanging may contain voluntary recall with tests positive look out.  This isn't time to shake a Magic 8 ball.

[guess]

Would anyone be interested in contacting Mr. Golombeck himself to see if he would provide copies?  It would not be out of line to thank him for calling attention to it otherwise we'd never have known.  If not I'll try today or tomorrow.

Golspice@aol.com

[Macabre]

I'm happy to, but I think a list of (brief) questions would be important to have. i want to make sure we don't leave anything out.




I was thinking that perhaps we can ask FARE to be of assistance here. Again, we need to qualify our questions in advance. They are likely to get further than any individual.

[guess]

Well, his email address is there if you want to do it.  If I do I'm not going beyond industry standard items like BoL.

edit: done

[Macabre]

This post contains information about the following cumin suppliers:

*McCormick
*Newly Weds

I have contacted Fairbault Foods for this product:  Kuner's Southwest Refried Black Beans with Lime.



I was told that their factories are peanut free. Their and their brands include: 
Butter Kernel
Chiliman
Kuner's
Kuner's Southwestern
Mrs. Grimes
Pasta Select
Pride
S&W Beans

Most of their products are only sold in the Midwest, but some of their brands have other regional targets like the southeast and west.  Kuner's Southwestern is sold in the eastern 3/4 of the country (Montana to New Mexico and east). 

I asked for their cumin supplier. They said they have two suppliers, McCormick and Newly Weds, and they have a written statement from both stating that their cumin is not involved in the recall.

[Macabre]

Hormel

The customer service person at Hormel I spoke with said that he didn't have the name of the suppliers of their cumin but that their products aren't a part of the recall.

Alrighty then--I'll try back next week. That's what a lot of manufacturers could have said two weeks ago, and they'd be lying right now if they said it. 

I want to know where their cumin came from. 

[CMdeux]

S&W Beans



Thank you SO much Mac-- this is one of our household staple items.   

[Macabre]

Please see the first post for an updated list of recalled foods. The first post will be updated as new recalls are made.


Peanut: Cumin Recall (The Big Thread)

[CMdeux]

bigger and bigger...   


I suspect that Mac is correct-- the reason why some products are still "safe" is that the manufacturing tracing hasn't caught up yet in some markets/sectors/manufacturers.

I wish I had a feel for what percentage of the cumin in N. America this actually represents.  Is it 10% of last year's imports?  20%?  50%?  No idea.

We really rely upon certain ethnic foods to be safe, given my family's other food allergies, and this is hitting us very hard.  It's a LOT of stress, knowing that we might be feeding DD stuff that is contaminated in spite of asking all the right questions...

[PurpleCat]

How are you keeping this all straight?  I am officially confused now.  Not about what happened (well OK, yes, maybe) but what is and what is not safe.

The good news for me is I have 4 bottles of cumin (only 1 open) I bought back in October during a sale so I don't need to buy any at this time (I use it often).  I've warned DD to avoid salsa's, tacos, meat and chicken with rubs, etc... unless I make them until further notice.  I depend on McCormick, but the not so definitive response is concerning.

[SilverLining]

http://www.whenpeanutsattack.com/food-safety/peanuts-in-cumin/

[ajasfolks2]

Man oh man.

Taking eating out at any Mex place off our family's "OK-ish" list for the next few weeks . . . until smoke clears . . . really don't want a catastrophe with DS.

[guess]

We could try to FOIA the records FDA has but timeliness is a huge factor. 

[daisy madness]

We could try to FOIA the records FDA has but timeliness is a huge factor.

Yes, but I think that's still an excellent idea.  It won't help us know what the immediate dangers are, but any new information it provides us could potentially be helpful.  Knowledge is power.  Great idea, guess. 

[Macabre]

Really helpful:

http://achesongroup.com/2015/01/product-may-higher-risk-suspect/

Was Ground Cumin Contamination Intentional?

In November 2014, TAG became involved with a client who was recalling a variety of spice blends due to the presence of undeclared peanut and almond allergens.  At that time, there were a number of questions around how this issue arose, but ultimately it had to be simply categorized as one of those things that defy a logical explanation. The recall was eventually found to be caused by the use of cumin from a single supplier that was contaminated by the nut allergens.

        The oddity was that no one in the upstream supply chain admitted to using or even having either of these allergens in their facilities.  At face value, the fact that no one would admit to having these allergens was not a total surprise, because it's not unusual for no one to admit such a mistake.

        This whole situation would have meant nothing significant in terms of new risks if I had not happened to bump into my friend and colleague Dr. Steve Taylor (Professor of Food Science and Technology and Co-Director of FARRP at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln) in mid-December.  Steve and I were chatting about the recall when he mentioned that he was involved in a similar situation – with different companies and suppliers.  We agreed that something odd was going on, since the levels of allergens seen in the cumin were high and unlikely to have been due to cross contamination.

        As the conversation continued, Steve speculated that the contamination was deliberate, and we quickly came up with the very plausible possibility that someone at the very start of the supply chain had come up with the idea that adding peanut shells or almond husks to cumin – especially if it is already ground – would be a very effective way to add bulk at almost zero cost.  Thus the idea of this being an economically motivated adulteration situation came to be.

        Since that first recall in November, there have been others, one of the most recent of which was on December 26 when Adams Flavors, Foods & Ingredients of Gonzales, Texas voluntarily recalled cumin products because they may contain undeclared peanut proteins. According to their press release: "We were notified by one of our third party suppliers that one of the spice ingredients purchased contains peanut proteins, allergens that are not declared on the products' ingredient statements." This recall then led to a variety of secondary recalls by companies that had been using the cumin as an ingredient in other products.

        So, the main question I see is: Is it plausible that these all reflect economically motivated adulteration (EMA)?  At the time of this writing, a quick Internet search revealed the price of ground cumin to be $3,500 to $4,000 per ton – I don't know if this is a realistic price, but at that price adding 1% peanut shells at zero costs is essentially a profit of $350-$400 on a sale of ten tons of ground cumin.  Not a bad margin at zero cost for the grinder to put in their pocket.

        Perhaps I simply have an overactive imagination, and chatting with Steve Taylor got the two of us into an over-speculative mode. But my instincts are that this is a real EMA situation, and my advice to all those using cumin – and other spices that could be part of this EMA thinking – is to start testing incoming ingredients for allergens before we have an outbreak of peanut-related anaphylactic reactions on our hands.