Food Recalls May Be on the Rise, and Some People Are Wondering What's Going On

If you've noticed that food seems to be getting recalled all the time, you're not alone. Food recalls appear to be on the rise, and many want to know why it seems like companies just can't keep our food safe anymore.

While there's a somewhat mixed picture on the extent to which recalls have increased, it seems like there are some actual reasons for the rise in food recalls. Here's what we know about why they're happening more frequently, and what that increase might mean.

While there's no specific reason for the increase in food recalls, we know that companies like Perdue have recalled hundreds of thousands of chicken nuggets, and the CDC has reported on cases of salmonella in 31 states.

The reason for the rise of recalls, though, has more to do with consolidation in the food industry that it does with anything else. The rise of new technologies has played an important role here as well.

Because fewer companies are now making more kinds of foods, contamination of one product might mean that an even greater lineup of products has been exposed. Basically, one contamination is harder to contain when more food products are intermixed in bigger factories, which means that more products have to be recalled every time an exposure is detected.

“You get production operations that are generally larger. And can effect a greater span of the food products that we eat,” Chris Cook, a county health commissioner in Ohio told WDTN. Chris also added that more advanced technologies are being used to check foods now, which means that more foods are being flagged for contamination today, and fewer are slipping by that should have been flagged.

The news of product recalls can be alarming, especially if you had any of those foods in your home or had consumed them. The actual cause of the contamination varies from case to case, but foodborne illness has actually been on the decline in the United States since 2009, which is good news.

The FDA's job is to be extremely cautious about contaminated foods, even if it means taking things off shelves for extended periods.

Sometimes, though, the costs of these recalls can be quite serious. This was the case in 2022 when baby formula was recalled, and parents who needed the formula found that there was no way to get it because of how few companies actually make it.

Consolidation has also meant that we are increasingly reliant on fewer companies to provide us with the goods and services that keep society moving. When those companies have an issue, whether it's a recall or not, massive portions of America simply have to shut down. More competition could mean that each recall matters less, and it could mean that the companies that exist would be more careful to avoid a recall because of what it would do to business.