USDA Food Recalls, 2006-2010

This brief report details a dataset of all United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food recalls from 2006-2010. The recalls have been compiled by the Faunalytics into a single dataset that includes the severity of each recall, the amount of each recall, and the reason for each recall. This report also describes the methods of data collection and overall descriptive findings of the dataset.

This dataset is comprised of the USDA food recalls for animal products, which are derived from chickens, cows, ducks, pigs, and turkeys. Each recall was coded for: class of recall (i.e. level of severity of recall as determined by the USDA), reason for recall (coded on a number of levels), type of product recalled, and amount of the product recalled. The Faunalytics dataset is reliable and reproducible; it has been compiled with methodological precision, and the coding scheme was developed and tested using measures of intercoder agreement, such that the final coding scheme has a high level of intercoder agreement, attesting to the data’s reliability.

Study highlights:

• From 2006-2008 class 1 recalls accounted for 76%-86% of all recalls but in 2009 class 1 recalls accounted for 65% of all recalls, and in 2010 they accounted for just over half (55%) of all recalls.
• During this five-year period the USDA recalled a total of 211,825,361 pounds of meat-based products. Over half of this was recalled in 2008 (154.7 million pounds) with the majority of the recalls coming from cow-based food products (188.4 million pounds).
• Of the 162 recalls due to contamination, 83% were due to a food-borne pathogen, including Listeria, E. Coli and Salmonella. Most of the remaining recalls due to contamination were a result of a foreign object or material, such as metal or plastic, in the food.