11 Of The Worst Canned Food Recalls In American History

Food product recalls are scary. They're a reminder that it takes a lot of trust in strangers to eat food. Between farmers, farm workers, butchers, and processing facilities, few things illustrate humanity's capacity for cooperation than contemporary food systems. However, along these chains of systems that can take a humble grain of wheat and turn it into a delicious can of SpaghettiOs, things sometimes go wrong. As of this writing, in early 2025, food recalls are deadlier than ever. That's not a fun stat to confront.

When the present is scary, sometimes it's a good idea to look to the past for guidance or warnings. Even if Costco and Trader Joe's are ripping canned tuna off the shelves, it's not necessarily a sign of the end times. Have there been canned tuna recalls like this before? What did people do then? History teaches us that our contemporary problems are not unique to us, but connect us to generations past who survived their own harsh trials. Today, might be lamenting the loss of canned tuna, but in the past, your great-great grandparents were having funerals for frozen pizzas because of improperly canned mushrooms.

Back in 1919, the olive industry hadn't quite perfected canning. We know this because, in that year, 18 people in Ohio, New York, and Michigan died from botulism after eating contaminated olives. It's still one of history's biggest fruit or vegetable recalls of any kind. The only way to get a standard operating procedure is through trial and error and, unfortunately for canned food, "error" can sometimes mean "botulism," a deadly illness. This toxin is made from the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, which absolutely loves oxygen-free environments like improperly canned food.

The practice of canning food began in 19th-century France and only made its way to the States in 1825. After the tragedy in 1919, canners, government officials, and scientists alike realized something different had to be done to ensure food safety. Both the National Canners Association and the California Canners League launched wide-ranging research and inspection efforts, scrambling to restore public trust in their products. Scientists and experts were called in to form a Botulism Commission. Their findings resulted in the government setting strict regulations and standardization. These three groups — scientists, government workers, and canners — worked together to lay the foundations for 20th-century food safety protocol.

Mere weeks before Thanksgiving in 1959, it was announced that some cranberries had been contaminated with a weed killer that was known to cause cancer in rats. Those are three nouns — killer, cancer, rats — that absolutely should not have a seat at the supper table. The announcement obviously set U.S. families scrambling to find a new side for holiday plates, but consumers were lucky to have even known about the risk. Just one year prior, the 1958 Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act was passed, which included an amendment stating that any food additive found to cause cancer in humans or animals could not be declared safe to eat. Who knows how much cancer-causing weed killer was ingested at Thanksgiving tables in previous years?

The public health scare even led to speculation about President Eisenhower's Thanksgiving (he and Mamie skipped cranberry in favor of applesauce) and then-Presidential candidates John F. Kennedy (who publicly drank two glasses of cranberry juice) and Richard Nixon (who said he saw no reason for "hysteria" over cranberries). Presidential showmanship aside, government testers sprung into action, clearing 16 million pounds of cranberries as safe for sale before Thanksgiving. The government also paid more than $8 million in indemnity to cranberry growers.

A lot of the numbers in this article are in millions: Millions of pounds of food contaminated, millions of cans pulled off shelves. Those high numbers are hard to picture mentally, but believe us when we say this one was big. In 1973, 75 million cans of mushrooms were recalled for fear of botulism. Employees at United Canning noticed some swelling in cans, and lo and behold, testing revealed that one of the most deadly toxins known to humans was kicking around in the canned food.

It's hard to imagine what 75 million cans of mushrooms look like, sure. How's this for a visual? The recall led to one Michigan pizza maker holding a so-called "funeral" for frozen pizzas that had to be tossed. That's right, thousands upon thousands of frozen pizzas, laid ceremoniously in an 18-foot hole. Mario Fabbrini, owner of Papa Fabbrini's Frozen Pizzas, voluntarily submitted some of his pies for testing. When results came back positive, he recalled his own product, even driving around to stores to retrieve the pies himself. Michigan Governor William G. Milliken even showed up and gave a eulogy for the doomed 'za.

When a man in Belgium died from botulism after eating canned salmon, the FDA launched an investigation. The 1982 report from the U.S. General Accounting Office called it one of the largest recalls in recent history. In all, over 60 million cans were recalled. It was a tumultuous event for the almost entire salmon industry in Alaska. 

The canning equipment was found to be defective. Cans that were deemed dangerous were mistakenly re-introduced to the market, and the FDA had to request that one firm recall all of a certain type of can produced from 1980 to 1981. Apparently, the culprit was a machine that re-forms cans. The aluminum would arrive at the facility almost completely flat. It would then have to be walloped into shape for cans. Somewhere along the line, the air seal wasn't doing what air seals are supposed to do. Luckily, the initial incident in Belgium was the only fatality reported.

"Under-processed" is never a term you want to hear with canned, pre-made food. Particularly with meat. In 2010, 15 million pounds of SpaghettiOs were recalled due to potential under-processing in the meatballs. The products affected were manufactured for an astonishingly long time, from December 2008 all the way until June 2010. Routine warehouse inspection revealed the problem, which sort of makes us wonder how often inspections were happening.

Fortunately, no illnesses were reported. Even so, 15 million pounds of meatballs going through a cooking process without the required heat levels for longer than a year? That's troubling. That points to failures in manufacturing, quality control, and leadership at the facility. When a recall notice includes a statement that illnesses have been reported, it's useful to remember that the words "reported" and "occurred" mean different things. It's entirely possible for someone to get sick, chalk it up to food poisoning, and then just move on. Meanwhile, a whole food processing facility has a problem that takes years to identify.

In 2010, more than five million containers of powdered baby formula had to be recalled due to beetle contamination. The FDA determined that there was no immediate health risk aside from stomach pain and decreased appetite, but parents and caregivers were understandably not okay with giving infants formula with a garnish of beetle larvae. Eating bugs might be common practice in many countries — like the tarantula doughnut tapas enjoyed in Cambodia — but in the United States, many people are hesitant about the idea of eating insect protein. With baby formula though? Bottle-fed babies definitely don't need to work on acquiring a taste for our six- and eight-legged friends.

Adding insult to injury, many of the products affected were distributed through the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. Being a new parent is stressful enough. Add living paycheck-to-paycheck or in poverty, and that's a recipe for a roiling anxiety stew. Then throw beetles in the babies' milk on top of that? Even if the actual health risks were pretty minimal, that's still nightmare stuff.

Vienna sausages. Potted meat. Chicken Vienna sausages. Not exactly foods you want to imagine with defective cans. In 2023, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service officers noticed cans from a range of production dates with spoiled or leaking cans. Conagra, the company behind these products, ended up recalling more than 2.6 million pounds of meat off of shelves. No deaths or cases of botulism were reported, but that's a remarkable amount of food to be preemptively taken off the market.

That image of leaking cans of meat is revolting enough, but disgust shifts to fear when you read that the products being recalled "may have been damaged in a manner that is not readily apparent to consumers." There are lots of chilling phrases that come up when you read these reports, like when something is recalled for undeclared milk, but cans being subject to recall because they are damaged in a way that consumers might not even recognize? That's right up there. While no official deaths were reported, this is the kind of recall that might make you look twice at what's in your pantry.

In early 2025, canned tuna distributed by Tri-Union Seafoods to Walmart, Trader Joe's, H-E-B, Kroger, and other grocery chains was recalled due to damage that could compromise cans' integrity over time. There was a manufacturing defect with the easy-open pull tabs on the lids, which threatened the seal. This, of course, means the risk of botulism throwing a raging party in the dark, seemingly closed can that you're about to open for lunch. Tuna melts are wonderful, but not even a tuna melt with pimento cheese is worth dying over. Out of an abundance of caution, Tri-Union Seafoods recalled cans sold in more than a dozen states.

A big recall announcement with a fatality risk is scary enough. It's even scarier when it comes on the heels of news of layoffs at the FDA, including staffers responsible for food safety. The first two months of 2025 were characterized by massive upheaval in the U.S. federal government. Huge swaths of the federal workforce were laid off. These firings reached FDA employees who reviewed the safety of food ingredients. While this round of firings does not have a cause-and-effect relationship with this particular recall, recalls and FDA layoffs are frightening headlines to read in tandem with one another.

This 2007 incident had five cases of botulism in Texas, Indiana, and California. The first case involved a pair of siblings who fell ill after eating some chili sauce. While the kids were in the hospital on ventilators, investigators determined the potentially offending can had been tossed in the garbage. However, there were unopened cans in the family's house. Sure enough, botulism showed up, and that evidence helped connect this outbreak to occurrences in other states. The married couple in Indiana had the toxin-laced chili sauce in a container of leftovers. The woman in California who contracted the disease had also discarded the cans she'd eaten out of, making a determination of how she got sick officially inconclusive. This is one of the scarier aspects of recalls.

FDA investigators descended on a Castleberry's canning facility in Georgia and identified enough improper processes that the company shut the facility down entirely. The report cited infractions like the procedures of thermal processing not ensuring total sterility of the containers and a broken water valve on the cooling system. Ultimately, it was determined that the blame rested on facility management.

There is a reason the FDA wants to know how manufacturers are preparing food. In 2024, Snapchill Coffee was a five-year-old coffee roaster selling canned beans to a few retailers. After the company failed to report a part of its canning process, the FDA informed Snapchill that the process used could lead to botulism. Airtight cold brew, like the kind that Snapchill makes, is regulated by a special set of FDA rules, specific to acidified and low-acid canned foods. Snapchill was quietly not following these regulations. Hundreds of different products distributed to over 150 retailers were affected.

What's frightening about this one is learning that companies can apparently conceal manufacturing steps from the FDA. Then, these companies can either knowingly or unknowingly ship out dangerous products to an unsuspecting public. We certainly don't want to imply any malice on Snapchill's part, here. This particular recall seems like a good reminder that we humans don't know everything, and having a functioning federal government that regularly does thorough food safety inspections is a good thing. 

While this one was caught before any illnesses could be reported, the reason why is pretty scary. The FDA found the levels of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or "forever chemicals," in these cans was 20,000 parts per trillion. The maximum allowable amount for food isn't set, but the maximum allowable amount for water is just .004 parts per trillion.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances are more simply called "PFAS," and they were invented in the 1950s for purposes related to things like cleaning products, nonstick cookware, and stain-resistant coatings for upholstery. Studies suggest PFAS exposure can affect cholesterol levels, including increases of pre-eclampsia in pregnant women. Any allowable amount in food doesn't seem great, and having a detectable amount worth issuing a recall over is pretty scary. An item like canned smoked baby clams being readily available on grocery store shelves is a thoroughly modern convenience, much like nonstick cookware — and modern conveniences require evolving safety practices, just like when standards for canning industry safety were first being set in the early 20th century.