Pillsbury might be one of America's most beloved baking brands, but that doesn't mean things can't go wrong — and, well, let's just say that nothing kills the appetite like cookies 'n E. coli.
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00:00Pillsbury might be one of America's most beloved baking brands, but that doesn't mean things
00:05can't go wrong.
00:06And, well, let's just say that nothing kills the appetite like cookies and E. coli.
00:10In case you ever questioned the scope of Pillsbury's reach, keep in mind that, between 1979 and
00:152001, the bakery brand owned fellow household name Green Giant.
00:18So when Green Giant ran into some quality assurance trouble with its cutleaf spinach
00:22in 1995, it was up to Pillsbury to deal with the problem.
00:25We hate spinach.
00:26Hate spinach?
00:27You has to eat it to get health, strength, and vitality.
00:32When a consumer in Connecticut found fly larvae in a box of Green Giant spinach, the FDA swiftly
00:37moved in.
00:38In early June 1995, investigators tested Green Giant spinach pulled from the supplier's warehouse
00:43and found that they tested positive for fly larvae and rodent contaminants.
00:46Initially, Pillsbury issued a nationwide recall for two production codes of Green Giant cutleaf
00:51spinach and butter sauce, but this was only the beginning.
00:54Pillsbury subsequently expanded the recall, looping in over two dozen production codes
00:58of boxed and bagged spinach.
00:59All of the recalled products, which included 16-ounce bags of Green Giant Pasta Accents
01:04Florentine and cutleaf spinach in bags, contained spinach from the tainted batch, and were manufactured
01:08around the same time as the contaminated spinach purchased in Connecticut.
01:13Pillsbury issued a recall for nearly 9,000 cases of its refrigerated chocolate chip cookie
01:17dough because they were mislabeled, and oversight during manufacturing resulted in thousands
01:21of Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough packages being filled with walnut cookie dough.
01:26Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies.
01:27Hey!
01:28You can play with our food!
01:29Although it may seem simple, this mistake was anything but.
01:32The FDA classifies tree nuts, like walnuts, as a major allergen, and requires all food
01:36manufacturers to print a warning on the packaging of any product that contains them.
01:41Consumers with a severe tree nut allergy who unknowingly consume walnuts may go into anaphylactic
01:45shock, a rapid-onset reaction that can be fatal.
01:48News of the recall broke on September 8, 1998, before it was expanded a few months
01:52later.
01:53Luckily, no illnesses were reported in connection with the mix-up.
01:56That wasn't the end of Pillsbury's dough woes, however.
01:59In September 2014, the company was forced to recall refrigerated biscuit flaky layers
02:04and refrigerated buttermilk biscuits because the buttermilk biscuits, which were individually
02:08wrapped, found their way into the biscuit flaky layers four-pack wrapping.
02:11Although the individually wrapped packages displayed the correct ingredients, the four-pack
02:15wrapping didn't indicate the presence of milk in the product.
02:18The recall affected 720 cases of biscuits, but no illnesses were reported as a result.
02:24In 2002, Pillsbury issued a multi-state recall for its chocolate chip muffin mix.
02:28Products sold in 12 states were found to contain chocolate chips made with milk, something
02:32the packaging did not specify with the necessary food allergy warning.
02:35When manufacturing goes to plan, Pillsbury chocolate chip mix contains semi-sweet chocolate
02:40chips only, which are dairy-free.
02:41Rather than wait for the FDA to notice that Pillsbury had put the wrong chips in the bag,
02:45the brand recalled the mislabeled packages voluntarily.
02:48The decision cost Pillsbury 753 cases of chocolate chip mix, but pulling the products from distribution
02:54prevented consumers with a milk allergy or sensitivity from getting sick.
02:57No reported illnesses were connected to this recall.
03:01Talk of Pillsbury usually conjures visions of cakes, rolls, biscuits, and more, and none
03:05of these products would be possible without flour.
03:07Isn't this the instant you've been waiting for?
03:10New Pillsbury Instant Blending Flour.
03:13Yes, flour, the literal building block on which Pillsbury still stands.
03:18Pillsbury was first established in 1869 as a flour miller, but a number of recalls of
03:22the company's flour products in 2019 stood to question the very thing that made the brand
03:26what it is today.
03:27In March that year, a random inspection turned up traces of salmonella in a single bag of
03:31all-purpose flour.
03:32At that time, Pillsbury had shipped most of its product to Publix and Winn-Dixie grocery
03:37stores.
03:38After learning the test results, Pillsbury recalled two lots of all-purpose flour.
03:41Things went from bad to worse two months later, when the ADM Milling Company enacted an all-purpose
03:46flour recall due to E. coli contamination.
03:49Pillsbury's flour was included in the multi-brand recall, which, in total, encompassed over
03:5316.5 million pounds of flour.
03:56A month after that, a recall was issued for some 185,000 pounds of Pillsbury Best Bread
04:01Flour, also due to the risk of E. coli contamination.
04:04The E. coli outbreak impacted much of the domestic flour industry, as ADM is one of
04:09the world's largest manufacturers of agricultural goods.
04:12The source of the outbreak was narrowed down to flour processed at ADM's manufacturing
04:16plant in Buffalo, New York, with the wheat milled into flour at this location suggested
04:20as the point of the bacteria's origin.
04:22But this was never confirmed outright.
04:24It seems that Pillsbury has been forced to contend with one food recall after another
04:28in recent years.
04:29After the flour finally settled in 2019, the company managed to resume business as usual,
04:34and lasted until May 2021.
04:36This time, the recall posed a problem for the U.S. Armed Forces.
04:39The Defense Commissary Agency, which is responsible for feeding the nation's troops, levied a
04:43complaint to Pillsbury's parent company, General Mills, over its pie crust.
04:47According to the agency, some Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust stocked in military commissary kitchens
04:52and stores had an off flavor.
04:54The complaint didn't leverage concerns over whether the pie crust had fallen victim to
04:58a foodborne pathogen, but it was clear that the quality of the product didn't meet the
05:01department's expectations.
05:03Pillsbury refused to risk its reputation in regards to this complaint, and General Mills
05:07withdrew one product code's worth of inventory of pie crust from military distribution.
05:13Pillsbury may have had some particular trouble in recent years, but the company's history
05:16with recalls goes back a long way.
05:18The company issued its first major recall in 1971, when boxes of Farina cereal were
05:23suspected of containing particles of glass.
05:25Tiny bits of glass have a way of hiding in plain sight, and Pillsbury decided not to
05:29take any risks.
05:30In March 1971, the company recalled 27.5 ounce packages of Farina cereal under a single
05:35lot code.
05:36A statement from Pillsbury's corporate office explained that the recalled cereal made accidental
05:41contact with remnants from a shattered glass shield during processing.
05:44The incident reportedly occurred at a Pillsbury plant in Springfield, Illinois, on November
05:4923, 1970.
05:50This recall had one unintended and positive consequence.
05:53A few years before the 1971 recall, Pillsbury had been contracted by the U.S. government
05:58to develop specialty food products for astronauts to ensure they would not get food poisoning
06:02in space.
06:03Luckily, the glass recall didn't destroy Pillsbury's credibility with the feds, but the close call
06:08motivated Pillsbury's director of research at the time to speak at the 1971 National
06:12Conference on Food Protection.
06:14In 1972, Pillsbury held training programs for FDA investigators that helped popularize
06:19the hazard analysis and critical control point system.
06:22HACCP remains a touchstone in food safety standards today.
06:28For more information, visit www.pillsbury.gov