OUCH

Huge Recall Ordered for Shredded Cheese Over Scary Contamination

Hundreds of thousands of cheeses have been urgently pulled from supermarket shelves.

More than 260,000 bags of shredded cheese sold at supermarkets have been urgently recalled after they were found to contain traces of shredded metal, the Food and Drug Administration reported. Ohio-based manufacturer Great Lakes Cheese Co. initiated the recall in early October, citing concerns about potential fragments of metal, but now the FDA has upgraded the recall risk from a Class I to a Class II, the second most urgent, after claiming that consuming the products could cause “temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences.” The affected cheeses are sold under dozens of brand names at some of the nation’s biggest retailers, including Aldi, Walmart, and Target. Low-moisture part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese makes up the bulk of the recall, with 235,789 cases pulled from shelves. The cheeses are sold in 31 states and Puerto Rico, with many of the products having an expiry date that stretches into February and March 2026. The recall follows a similar move by New Jersey-based cheese distributor Ambriola last week, which announced it was recalling several products after routine testing confirmed the presence of Listeria, a bacterium that can potentially cause life-threatening infections.