Why Every Food Business Needs a Recall Plan
Why Every Food Business Needs a Recall Plan
Running a food business comes with many responsibilities, and among the most critical is ensuring the safety of your customers. One key tool for protecting both your consumers and your business is a recall plan, a systematic procedure that prepares your company to respond quickly and effectively if something goes wrong.
A recall plan is essentially a roadmap for action in the event that a product could harm consumers. While recalls are most often associated with dangerous contamination, they can also occur due to faulty packaging, mislabeling, or other issues that put customers at risk. Recall plans are not unique to food, any consumer product, from IKEA furniture to packaged goods, has protocols in place, but for food businesses, they are essential. Contaminated ingredients, broken seals, or foreign objects in a product can make people sick and, in extreme cases, endanger vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised.
A Real-World Example: Nola’s Salsa “Bombs”
Sherie Theriault, co-founder of NEFB Advisors, knows firsthand why a recall plan is critical. During her time running Nola’s Fresh Foods, her company produced fresh salsa in tamper-resistant containers. One day, she received urgent calls from distributors and buyers: containers of salsa were literally exploding, creating what she jokingly called “salsa bombs.”
Investigating the issue, Sherie discovered a tiny piece of plastic left on one of the container lids during manufacturing. This microscopic flaw allowed air to enter the container, causing fermentation of the tomatoes and pressure buildup that popped the lids. Thanks to her pre-existing recall plan, she was able to identify the affected lot codes, contact distributors and buyers directly, retrieve the product, and replace it efficiently, all while minimizing financial loss (around $10,000) and maintaining her customer relationships.
This was a lucky case where the issue was packaging, not contamination, but it illustrates why recall plans are not optional. Without a system in place, a minor mishap could escalate into a costly and reputationally damaging crisis.
Why Companies Need Recall Plans
A recall plan is risk mitigation in action. It forces businesses to anticipate hazards before they occur and implement processes to prevent or respond to them. For example, a baker using raw eggs risks a recall if one shell contaminates a batch; a produce company risks contamination from rubber bands or other co-manufactured items. Proper planning, including sourcing prewashed, prebagged, or preweighed ingredients, can eliminate many of these risks before they happen.
What a Recall Plan Involves
Creating a recall plan requires thorough documentation of every step of your process:
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and safety precautions
Ingredient sourcing, handling, and storage
Production processes and employee responsibilities
Shipping and tracking logistics, including Bills of Lading (BOLs) and lot codes
Communication protocols to alert distributors, retailers, and customers quickly
The plan must also comply with federal, state, and local guidelines, ensuring that if a recall is necessary, it can be executed consistently and efficiently, even across multiple states.
Why a Professional Advisor Matters
Drafting and maintaining a recall plan can be tedious, requiring meticulous attention to detail and knowledge of industry regulations. NEFB Advisors specializes in this work, bringing experience from Sherie’s own trials at Nola’s Fresh Foods and her work helping numerous other companies. They provide customized templates, review ingredient and process flows, and ensure that every step, from sourcing to shipment, is accounted for. Having a set of professional eyes on your plan can save time, prevent costly errors, and protect your brand.
In short, a recall plan is not just a regulatory requirement, it’s a strategic safeguard that protects your customers, your business, your valuable relationships and your reputation. NEFB Advisors helps food businesses create, implement, and maintain recall plans so that when an issue arises, companies can respond quickly, confidently, and efficiently, turning potential disasters into manageable situations.