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  5. Assisting Interested Parties in Addressing Marketplace Confusion Over the Identity of Products Subject to Recall
  1. Industry Guidance For Recalls

Assisting Interested Parties in Addressing Marketplace Confusion Over the Identity of Products Subject to Recall

FDA seeks to provide accurate information about product recalls to consumers and industry representatives. FDA works with industry and our state partners to publish press releases and other notices about recalls that may potentially present a significant or serious risk to the public health. On FDA’s recalls website, FDA provides information about a product being recalled, including the brand name, product description, the reason/problem, the company conducting the recall, related press release(s), and a picture of the product (when available). For major product recalls (for example, when a recall may affect multiple products), FDA also provides a searchable database of products affected by recall. As needed, FDA has also supported industry efforts to enable consumers to distinguish products not subject to recall from recalled products. For example, during the pistachio product recall in 2009, FDA’s website provided a link (with an appropriate disclaimer) to an industry-sponsored website that listed firms that had informed the industry sponsors of the website that the firms’ products did not contain recalled pistachios.

If FDA is aware of confusion in the marketplace about products that may be implicated in a food outbreak, and information gathered by industry or other sources may serve to alleviate that confusion, FDA will support efforts by industry and others to communicate information to consumers about products not subject to a recall when sufficiently reliable information about products not connected with the recall exist, if FDA concludes that disclosing the information is in the interest of public health. More detailed information about FDA’s current thinking on product recalls is provided on the Industry Guidance webpage.

Recalling firms who are aware of confusion and would like assistance from FDA in communicating to the public regarding which food products are subject to recall should contact the recall coordinator in their district. Industry members who would like assistance in communicating to the public when they are aware of confusion regarding which food products are subject to recall should contact the FDA, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Office of Compliance, Division of Enforcement, Recall Team at CFSAN.Recall@fda.hhs.gov.

 
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