How was one of the world's largest food companies burned by Pixar's "A Bug's Life"? Just ask the kids it marketed to.
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00:00How was one of the world's largest food companies burned by Pixar's A Bug's Life?
00:05Just ask the kids it marketed to.
00:09Gold Medal flour may have been the foundation for what would become the General Mills Corporation
00:14in 1928. But fast forward almost a century, and General Mills was issuing not one,
00:20but three separate recalls on its all-purpose gold medal flour.
00:25In 2016, the company instituted a massive recall of a wide range of flour products
00:31in response to an E. coli outbreak. That outbreak spanned months, surfacing in December of 2015
00:38and continuing through September of the following year. In total, 63 people living in 24 different
00:45states fell ill. By the end of July and following a couple of additional stages,
00:50total volume reached a whopping 45 million pounds of flour recalled by General Mills.
00:56Three years later, in January 2019, the company was again encouraging consumers to toss its
01:03product after salmonella was discovered in a sample of its five-pound bags of gold medal
01:08unbleached all-purpose flour. In September of that same year, another batch of the same
01:14five-pound flour variety was determined to potentially carry E. coli. Although the bacteria
01:19can be killed by high temperatures, the risk that someone might consume a contaminated batch
01:24of raw flour necessitated these dual recalls. But in April 2023, General Mills was at it again,
01:32with a nationwide, voluntary recall of four varieties of all-purpose gold medal flour.
01:38The recall includes two, five, and 10-pound bags of its gold medal unbleached and bleached
01:43all-purpose flour. Those all added up to over two million pounds of recalled flour.
01:49The company stated the products were recalled because they potentially carried salmonella,
01:54and warned consumers to avoid eating any products containing raw flour.
01:58Nevertheless, 14 people residing in 13 different states became ill with a strain of salmonella
02:04that the CDC determined had originated with bags of gold medal flour. While three of the people
02:10sickened by the outbreak were hospitalized, the death toll was zero. So, bright side?
02:17Progresso is a particularly noteworthy brand owned by the General Mills Corporation.
02:22In August 2020, the company announced a voluntary recall of 14-ounce cans of Progresso organic
02:29chicken noodle soup. After it was discovered, the label did not indicate the inclusion of soy
02:34and dairy. These are both relatively common allergens, so these sorts of recalls are
02:39intended to prevent someone from consuming soup and having an allergic reaction.
02:44In this Progresso recall, only one batch of the chicken noodle soup lacked proper labeling.
02:49Adding up to about 3,000 cans that had been distributed nationwide,
02:53customers were encouraged to dispose of any mislabeled cans,
02:57after which they were told to contact General Mills, presumably for some sort of refund.
03:02Cascadian Farm is a health-focused brand under the General Mills umbrella,
03:07producing exclusively organic food products. In October 2017, General Mills announced a
03:13recall of certain boxes of Cascadian Farm organic cinnamon raisin granola cereal,
03:18for lacking text on the label declaring the presence of almonds, a common allergen.
03:24Boxes of this cereal with two specific best-before dates were implicated,
03:28corresponding with two days of factory output. The volume recalled purportedly added up to more
03:34than 40,000 pounds of product in total. There were no public reports of illnesses resulting
03:39from undeclared almonds in the affected Cascadian Farm product, so the company
03:43presumably caught the error before anyone with a nut allergy inadvertently consumed the cereal.
03:50What may well be the single highest-profile undeclared allergen incident in the company's
03:55history involves its Cheerios brand. Ultimately, General Mills had to recall approximately 1.8
04:01million boxes of Cheerios in October 2015. The offending Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios
04:08were made with standard wheat flour, while the packaging highlighted oat flour and claimed to
04:13be gluten-free. Other variants of the cereal, including the likes of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios,
04:18were unaffected. A spokesperson for General Mills explained at the time
04:22that a factory mishap resulted in the erroneous use of wheat flour
04:26in what was supposed to be a gluten-free production line at a facility in Lodi, California.
04:32Four days' worth of Cheerios and 13 days of Honey Nut Cheerios
04:36were produced before the error was corrected. General Mills claimed to have implemented a
04:41permanent solution in this incident's wake to prevent wheat flour from affecting future
04:45batches of Cheerios. Given the lack of Cheerios recalls since, the system appears to be working.
04:51In August 2015, General Mills tested a 10-ounce bag of Cascadian Farm cut green beans
05:00and found that it carried Listeria bacteria. As a result, the company recalled roughly 60,000
05:06bags of green beans, but their green bean troubles were far from over.
05:10In October of that same year, practically the same thing happened. General Mills tested a
05:1616-ounce bag of Cascadian Farm green beans and again discovered the presence of Listeria bacteria.
05:22The company recalled approximately the same quantity of 60,000 bags.
05:27The recall batches were produced a year apart, so it's entirely possible that the two cases were
05:32unrelated to one another. Fortunately, there were no public reports of any illnesses originating
05:37from the green beans at the time of either recall. In October 2012, General Mills instituted a recall
05:44of Super Moist Golden Vanilla Cake Mix, manufactured by the Betty Crocker Company.
05:50This was akin to an undeclared allergen case, but rather than a lack of a proper allergen warning,
05:56or the inclusion of an erroneous ingredient, the boxes of Betty Crocker Cake Mix in question
06:02simply failed to detail comprehensive lists of ingredients.
06:06Missing from their ingredients lists were four kinds of food coloring — yellow 5,
06:10yellow 6, red 40, and blue 1. A total of 74,676 boxes ended up being recalled. While food coloring
06:20may not seem like a big deal, the inclusion of food dyes could be a difference maker for
06:24at least some customers. In fact, allergies to those coloring ingredients, while rare,
06:30are not unheard of.
06:33The reactions are what we would call idiosyncratic. They affect certain people and not others."
06:39In January 2009, the FDA determined that peanut butter produced by the Peanut Corporation of
06:45America carried Salmonella, and two General Mills brands distributed products that were
06:51potentially tainted. These included peanut butter cookie-flavored Larabars and peanut
06:57butter Bliss Crisp Jamfrakisbars. Both products came packaged in various quantities, resulting
07:04in a recall of 15,000 cases in total of the two kinds of peanut butter bar, according to FDA data.
07:10Years later, in 2015, the CEO of the Peanut Corporation of America at that time landed
07:17a 28-year jail sentence for his culpability in the Salmonella outbreak responsible for this
07:23General Mills recall. It wasn't the volume of the outbreak responsible for his criminal record,
07:28but the fact that he appeared to be fully cognizant of the fact his company was shipping
07:32out tainted peanut butter. In November 2007, General Mills recalled products packaged under
07:39two technically distinct brands due to the potential that an ingredient produced at a
07:44separate plant might carry bacteria. In this case, it was a pepperoni that may have been
07:49contaminated with E. coli on Totino's and Gino's frozen pizzas. A total of 5 million pizzas ended
07:57up implicated in this recall, all of which were made at a company facility in Wellston, Ohio.
08:02Nine out of 21 individuals exposed to E. coli bacteria around that time
08:07reported consuming either a Totino's or Gino's pepperoni pizza beforehand.
08:12Those illnesses spanned 10 separate states, with a majority in Tennessee.
08:17In 2004, General Mills recalled a line of Pop Secret microwavable popcorn packaged under a
08:24crispy glazed label over injuries to consumers. Specifically, multiple customers recounted
08:30receiving burns from the titular glaze component, as well as having difficulty preparing it.
08:35Enough customers complained that General Mills decided to recall
08:39280,596 cases of popcorn in total.
08:44In October 2002, General Mills instituted a recall for a line of refried beans under the popular
08:51Old El Paso brand over the possibility that cans might contain Clostridium botulinum,
08:56which is the bacteria responsible for botulism. The total number of cans of refried beans covered
09:02by this recall was limited to a single batch of 4,080. That said, botulism can still become fatal,
09:09so the risk was serious all the same. Fortunately,
09:12no illnesses linked to contaminated Old El Paso beans were publicly reported.
09:17General Mills became aware of the issue after testing a can from the batch in question,
09:22and determining that it was insufficiently heated during processing. The company had
09:26already corrected the issue responsible for that lack of heating by the time it issued the recall.
09:32All the way back in August 1999, General Mills instituted a rare recall for something altogether
09:39inedible — a flashlight promoting the Pixar movie A Bug's Life. Packaged with this flashlight
09:45were five lenses, each of which could project the shadow of a different character from the movie.
09:50As it turned out, those flashlights were prone to short-circuiting
09:53and becoming hot to the touch, posing a burn risk.
09:57This danger was, in all likelihood, especially pronounced given that the flashlight was a toy
10:06marketed to children. A majority of the flashlights were distributed via mail order,
10:11allowing the company to reach out to those customers directly.
10:14General Mills recalled 139,000 flashlights in total.