Trader Joe's Recalls Popular Frozen Dumplings
The popular chicken soup dumplings might be contaminated with plastic.
In the grocery store world, food recalls are a common thing (better safe than sorry!), and Trader Joe's isn't immune to this phenomenon. This week, CJ Foods Manufacturing Beaumont Corporation, the company that produces Trader Joe's popular soup dumplings, has issued a recall of 61,839 pounds of chicken soup dumplings that might be contaminated with foreign materials.
There might be hard plastic in Trader Joe’s dumplings
Unfortunately for fans of Trader Joe's soup dumplings (including ourselves), there might be hard plastic bits from a permanent marker in some of them. The problem was discovered after customers reported that they found bits of plastic in their soup dumplings, but fortunately, so far no injuries have been recorded from the contaminated dumplings.
The products involved in the recall include the establishment number "P-46009" inside the USDA mark of inspection and were shipped to Trader Joe's stores nationwide. See pictures of the labels here. If you have boxes of Trader Joe's dumplings in your freezer bearing these labels, you should either toss them in the garbage or return them to the Trader Joe's location where they were purchased so the store can dispose of them for you.
In recent years, Trader Joe's has had to issue multiple product recalls for various reasons, including potential listeria contamination in frozen fruit and sushi and the possible cross-contamination of peanuts in its dark chocolate almond butter cups.
There are many safeguards in place to prevent contaminants from entering packaged goods, but sometimes foreign objects can slip in anyway, causing potential issues. Fortunately, in many cases the cross-contamination does not lead to widespread instances of illness or hospitalization. But food contamination can occasionally be pretty serious, such as a recall on children's applesauce pouches from multiple grocery stores in 2023 after more than 50 children suffered adverse effects from consuming lead found in the product.
Throwing food out sucks, but eating plastic is worse. Let's avoid that where we can, shall we?