A voluntary FDA recall of 60 baked goods in the U.S. has brought listeria contamination into focus.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first listed the over 2 million product units on its recall page on January 7, 2025. 

This followed a voluntary withdrawal alert by manufacturer and wholesaler FGF LLC, based in Brownsburg, Illinois.

By February 5, when the FDA site classified the information, the reporting food company had listed 2,017,614 baked items.

The listing was under classification II, which means that the food has potential to harm but the resulting sickness is treatable. 

Most of the foods under review bear a production date of before December 13, 2024 and are mostly cakes or ring donuts.

Notably, some of the goods under removal sell at the popular Dunkin’ stores, according to the New York Times.

What is Listeria?

In filing the withdrawal, FGF mentioned the baked goods as bearing potential traces of the contaminant listeria monocytogenes. 

Since August 2023 when a New York-based company had alerted of potentially contaminated sheep milk cheese, listeria has increasingly attracted public attention. 

FDA describes listeria as a bacteria that flourishes in unhygienic conditions and can infect people through food contamination.

It thrives in soil, sewage, rotting garbage, live animals, and sometimes human food under production in poor sanitary conditions.

People who consume such dainties can fall sick of a disease known as listeriosis whose spreading agents include pets. 

It is a mild disease that causes vomiting, diarrhoea, and fever but can also bring miscarriages in susceptible pregnant women. 

For this reason, FDA often creates public sensitization through front-of-package food labeling to reduce dietary sickness.

Ultimately, this latest FDA recall effectively comes at an economically sensitive time when regional food products are under a trade duty slap. Indeed, baked goods from Canada where FGF distributes its products may attract an import tariff by March 4. To learn more on how past recalls have impacted food economics in the U.S., skim the statistics below. 

FDA Recall Statistics for the United States 

FDA food recalls have a massive impact on the American food sector, which loses $7 billion annually from such incidents, as of 2013. According to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), food safety causes over 300,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 mortalities, annually.

What are the most economically expensive food recalls in the U.S.? 

Between 1992 and 2013, NLM recorded 6 financially-heavy incidents, each with over $70 million in economic losses. While not all are major cases are on the list, below table illustrates each and its economic impact: 

Year	Contaminant	Food	Economic Loss Est. [$]
1992	E.coli	Hamburger	160,000,000
2006	E.coli	Spinach	350,000,000
2007	Salmonella	Peanut butter	133,000,000
2008	Salmonella	Tomatoes	250,000,000
2009	Salmonella	Peanut foods	70,000,000