Johnsonville Recalls More Than 42,000 Pounds of Sausage Over Possible Contamination

More than 42,000 pounds of Johnsonville ready-to-eat cheddar sausages have been voluntarily recalled over concerns that the product may contain small, black plastic fibers, the company and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week.

The recall includes just over 4,800 cases of Johnsonville’s Beddar with Cheddar smoked sausage links, which come in 14-ounce packages, and were sold at stores in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Consumers should look for three pieces of information to identify the affected sausages:

• A 7/11/2023 “best by” date
• A “C35” stamped next to the “best by” date
• An “EST 34224” printed on the front of the packaging

The recalled products have all three of these identifiers on the packaging—sausages stamped with only one or two of these are still safe to eat.

Johnsonville does not yet have a list of the specific stores where the recalled sausages were sold, but it has notified its retailers to check store shelves to ensure that none of the recalled cases are still available for purchase. Individuals in the eight affected states should still check the packaging before they buy any Beddar With Cheddar products, Johnsonville said.

People should also look to see if they have any recalled sausage cases at home—the USDA said it’s particularly concerned that “some product may be in consumers’ refrigerators or freezers.”

If someone has purchased one of the recalled sausage products, they can throw it out, return it to where they originally bought it, or contact Johnsonville directly for a refund.

The company says people can call or text their Consumer Relations team at 888-556-2728, or can fill out a form under the “Contact Us” page on Johnsonville’s website.

The possibly-contaminated cases make up only “a very small percentage” of those Beddar With Cheddar sausages sold by Johnsonville, the company said. The issue was first brought to light by someone who found foreign material in the sausages they purchased, but no health incidents have been reported so far.

Johnsonville and the USDA did not explicitly say what exactly the possible foreign contaminants were, but described them as thin plastic strands or fibers that were small, black, and had a “flexible thread-like material.”

Because of the contaminants’ size and flexibility, there is a lower risk of health issues even if someone were to eat the recalled sausages, Johnsonville said. The USDA has listed this as a class II recall, meaning that “there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product.”

In general, objects less than 7 millimeters in diameter rarely cause severe injuries, though the risk may be higher for vulnerable groups such as young children or the elderly, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But any foreign object—especially those that are hard or sharp—could potentially cause injury to a person’s mouth, teeth, gums, tongue, throat, stomach, or intestines.

Again, the risk of serious injury from eating the recalled Beddar With Cheddar sausages is low, and no health incidents have been reported. However, the USDA and Johnsonville are encouraging people to get in contact with their healthcare provider if they suspect any illnesses or injuries.