Thousands of Nestlé’s 54-ounce frozen snacks were withdrawn from grocery stores across the country, prompting the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to issue the recall; as Pepperoni Hot Pockets have caused at least one injury to a customer.
Nestle has then issued a recall for at least 762,000 packages of pepperoni Hot Pockets because they were served with glass shards and hard plastic inside the snacks, as a result of the harm.
The USDA claimed in a statement that the pepperoni Hot Pockets “may be contaminated with extraneous materials, specifically pieces of glass and hard plastic,” adding that the current batch of snacks has grown so unsafe that the recall was required to stop additional harm to others. One factor contributing to the panic over the recall of Hot Pockets is that they are a widely consumed frozen meal in America.
Four customers complained to the USDA about finding additional parts inside their Nestle Hot Pockets. One of the reports mentioned a “small mouth injury” brought on by the individual eating the risky Hot Pockets. However, Nestle had no idea about the problem until their customers reported the tainted food.
Twelve “Nestlé Hot Pockets Brand Sandwiches: Premium Pepperoni prepared with pork, chicken, and beef pizza garlic buttery dough” are included in the Nestle Hot Pockets that are subject to the recall.
According to the department, the boxes that can contain glass and hard plastic are marked with the lot codes 0318544624, 0319544614, 0320544614, and 0321544614 with the date “Best before Feb 2022.”
Maybe they didn’t inspect these tainted boxes as well as the others, as the tainted boxes also contain an establishment number, “EST. 7721A.”
“Consumers who have purchased this product are urged not to consume it. This product should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase,” the USDA said.
However, this is not the only time Nestle got in trouble, in December 2020 with a similar problem, Nestle also ran into difficulty, due to Nestlé’s concerns that the items were tainted with extraneous objects, a similar issue to the one affecting the Hot Pockets, their popular Lean Cuisine Baked Chicken, which was the variety with white meat chicken and stuffing was also recalled. Along with gravy and red-skin mashed potatoes, it included sides. They were removed from grocery store shelves.
The lot code 0246595911, whose “best before” date was October 2021, was subject to this recall. Due to the presence of foreign items in the mashed potatoes, Nestle had to recall an astounding 90,000 pounds of the frozen food product, because of five people who complained of “hard white plastic” in their Lean Cuisine meal.
They believe that a break in the conveyor belt is where the plastic originated from. The USDA thinks that a malfunctioning production machine allowed foreign plastic to get into the food in this case.
Consumer trust in Nestle has been damaged by the recalls that have occurred over the past two months. Why are frozen food products made by foreign producers filled with sharp glass shards and hard plastic? Before any more individuals were wounded while eating Hot Pockets, Nestle at least managed to remove these from the stores.
