The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on July 20 that Give and Go, a Toronto-based subsidiary of Mondelez International, had issued a voluntary recall of various muffin products over concerns that they might have been contaminated with listeria.
The company wrote:
Give and Go Prepared Foods (U.S.A.) Corp. announced today a voluntary nationwide recall of certain muffin products due to the potential for the products to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
The recall affected 26 varieties of muffins produced by Give and Go, including "Uncle Wally's," "The Worthy Crumb," and various products that had been sold in the U.S. by Walmart, Sam's Club, 7-Eleven and Stop & Shop. A full list of the products affected, as well as photographs of them, can be found here.
Give and Go has advised consumers who might have purchased one of the products in question to confirm that the item is affected by the recall by finding the lot number or best buy date, shown on the product label, and checking it against the full recall list here. Consumers are advised to throw out any affected items, and not to eat them.
In its announcement, the company noted that it had not yet received any reports of illness linked to the potential contamination, but was issuing the recall "out of an abundance of caution."