Several food companies have recently pulled products from store shelves and menus that posed safety risks, sickened customers or even led to their deaths. 

Earlier this month, TreeHouse Foods, a maker of private label brands, recalled dozens of frozen waffle and pancake products sold at stores including Kroger and Target due to possible listeria contamination. 

Last week, Costco smoked salmon and Fresh Express salad bowls were also recalled over listeria concerns. No illnesses have been tied to those products.

Additionally, 90 E. coli cases have been tied to slivered onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders across 13 states. One person has died, while 27 have been hospitalized. And since July, there have been 59 listeria cases tied to Boar’s Head products, which have left 10 dead. 

Unsafe farming practices, unsanitary facilities, the rise in convenience foods, and ingredients not yet subject to regulatory scrutiny have fueled foodborne illnesses. 

Recent federal actions are aimed at better preventing and detecting pathogens in food supply chains. Food companies and regulatory agencies are testing more products more often and using more sophisticated methods to help identify contaminated products. And — counterintuitively — frequent recalls suggest those efforts are working.   

“The number of recalls that we’re seeing is really a sign that our public health and regulatory system is more robust,” said Craig Hedberg, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “That said, nobody wants to see an outbreak.”

Although multistate outbreaks in the country dipped in 2023 to 9 from 13 the year before, recalls are on the rise. Between 2020 and 2023, food recalls increased by more than 20%, a Food Safety Magazine analysis found.

The upside of recalls

“We have much better tools for detecting and investigating outbreaks than we had even 10 years ago,” Hedberg said. “We have the ability to do whole genome sequencing of individual isolates, the bacteria that get isolated when somebody is sick and they go in and seek health care.” 

In 2011, the Food and Drug Administration was granted the power to issue mandatory recalls in the Food Safety Modernization Act. The FDA regulates most food facilities; the Agriculture Department regulates certain meat, poultry and egg product facilities.

“There are more ways that the FDA can give you grief for not making your food safe,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the Center for Food Safety, nonprofit advocacy group. 

And because the FDA has recall power, companies aren’t going to sit and wait around for them to issue one. That’s why they’ll issue recalls themselves, Hanson said. 

Why do we have outbreaks in the first place? 

Better detection methods explain some of the increase in recalls. But why do we have outbreaks or need recalls in the first place? 

Our food system and diets are constantly changing, which means consumers are exposed to new ingredients, Hedberg said. 

“Some of the hazards associated with new sources of foods, or new foods, aren’t fully recognized until something happens,” Hedberg said.  

For example, in 2022, nearly 400 people developed gastrointestinal illnesses and liver, bile duct and gallbladder issues after consuming lentil and leek crumbles from the meal delivery service Daily Harvest. 

Those crumbles included tara flour, Hedberg said, which the FDA later determined was unsafe. 

Americans are also spending more money on ready-to-eat foods, including lunch meat, food expert Darin Detwiler told Marketplace in July. The rise in convenience foods means there’s a greater risk of outbreaks.

For example, lunch meats should be kept below 40 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent listeria from growing, but the refrigerator at the store may be left open, said Detwiler, who teaches at Northeastern University. Employees are also handling different food items and slicing the meat, which can increase chances of cross contamination.

Cooking foods can kill some bacteria. But prepared foods and deli meats come to stores precooked.

And because consumers don’t cook lunch meat, bacteria in contaminated products may remain when you bring them home, Detwiler said. 

Listeria can also live a long time in food and processing plants, which means it is “especially hard to control,” according to the FDA. 

Preventing foodborne illnesses 

Because our food system is so complex, it can be tough to find a single solution to address all foodborne illnesses, said Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, director of the research-oriented Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. 

Health inspectors had cited numerous sanitation problems at the Boar’s Head facility in Jarratt, Virginia, before the listeria outbreak. And over the summer, there was a salmonella outbreak linked to cucumbers that may have been exposed to untreated canal water.  

Bacteria like E.coli and salmonella, which are often found in animal manure, can contaminate produce grown too close to animal feedlots.

There are some broad measures that regulatory agencies and food producers can implement in order to stem outbreaks. 

Right now, the distance between leafy greens and feedlots might range between 400 to 1,000 feet. Hanson of the Center for Food Safety suggests they should be at least 2,000 feet apart, but “the further … the better.”

Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from North Carolina, has introduced a bill that would further empower the FDA by allowing it to share key information with state and local regulatory agencies in order to improve food safety. That would include laboratory sampling information and consumer complaints. Currently, the information is considered proprietary, so the agency can’t share it, according to Food Safety News. 

The FDA also has a new traceability rule that will go into effect in 2026, requiring companies that handle foods such as cheese, cucumbers and leafy greens to keep additional records about those products as they move through the supply chain. 

“It will make it easier for FDA to look back along the supply chain and figure out where the contamination is and where to be able to target recalls,” said Laurie Beyranevand, director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School.