12 Frozen Food Recalls That Plagued Aldi

Yahoo

12-02-2025

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No grocery haul at Aldi is complete without a stroll through the freezer aisles. Behind those chilly glass doors is a well-stocked selection of ice cream treats, frozen fruits and veggies, heat and eat meals, and everything in between. When frozen food recalls throw a wrench in the Aldi inventory it makes shoppers suspicious. In some cases, it also makes them sick.
Aldi is just one of dozens of chain supermarkets affected by frozen food recalls, which in recent years are happening all the time. Food manufacturers throughout the globe have an obligation to produce food in accordance with general standards of quality and safety. In America, it's up to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make sure manufacturers selling goods on the domestic market are complying with these standards. Despite these safeguards, potentially dangerous foods continue to make their way into store shelves thereby triggering more and more recalls.
Frozen food recalls are particularly concerning because of their prolonged shelf life. Recalled foods tend to sit in people's home freezers long after news coverage of a certain recall has dwindled, which can make it harder to contain the situation and fully resolve the issue. These are some of the frozen food recalls that have been tough on Aldi's freezers ... and its reputation.
Read more: 10 Items To Buy On Your First Trip To Trader Joe's And 4 To Avoid
New year, new recall. Aldi kicked off 2025 with a dreaded recall announcement via press release on January 13th. The chain's frozen Casa Mamita Chicken & Cheese Taquitos were pulled from shelves in 31 states because pieces of metal might be lurking inside. Aldi wasn't able to catch the production error before the faulty taquitos hit shelves. Instead, the recall was issued after Aldi received consumer complaints about metal pieces in the taquitos. The USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) also received a report from a consumer who sustained a dental injury after eating a metal-laced taquito.
Aldi's recall was initiated in response to the taquito recall from Bestway Sandwiches Inc. on January 11, 2025. Bestway Sandwiches, a food manufacturer out of Valencia, California supplied Aldi with the frozen chicken and cheese taquitos sold under the Casa Mamita label. The initial recall affected approximately 24,870 pounds of product. The 20-ounce packages subject to the recall are printed with best buy dates 07/03/25 and 09/25/25.
This isn't the first time Aldi's chicken taquitos have posed a threat to consumers. In August 2020, a public health alert was issued for Casa Mamita taquitos, as well as frozen taquitos and chimichangas from Great Value and Jose Ole. That time, the green chiles used in the frozen products — which were supplied by Sun Valley Foods — contained pieces of plastic.
Shoppers hoping to pick up some frozen waffles at Aldi in October 2024 were left out in the cold thanks to a huge recall. Aldi recalled a single lot code of all six flavors of its Breakfast Best Homestyle Waffles as well as its buttermilk pancakes. All products were potentially tainted with Listeria monocytogenes. TreeHouse Foods Inc. supplied all of the Best Breakfast products included in the Aldi recall.
Aldi wasn't the only grocery store having to round up tons of frozen waffles and pancakes. Walmart, Target, Dollar General and many more were affected by the listeriosis scare. Popular waffle producer Kodiak also took a huge hit, recalling eight out of nine waffle varieties it sells. Days after the recall was issued on October 18, 2024, additional tests were performed at TreeHouse's Brantford, Ontario plant. Results from the testing compelled TreeHouse to expand the recall. The expansion saw supermarket chains like Whole Foods, Kroger, and Trader Joe's sweeping waffles from freezer shelves.
No reported illnesses were connected to TreeHouse's listeria troubles, yet the quantity of frozen waffles and pancakes was monumental. Over 40 frozen waffle and pancake brands were possibly contaminated. A total of 9,907,389 cases were recalled.
Browse the aisles of any supermarket and you'll start to realize how many different food suppliers grocery stores rely on to keep their shelves stocked with in-demand items. Fruit, both fresh and frozen, has a simpler distribution pathway than processed foods containing multiple ingredients, but quality control issues are still rampant in this category and big fruit recalls happen often. Aldi encountered a produce problem in March 2023 with its organic frozen strawberries.
After five people fell ill after eating organic frozen strawberries in Washington state, the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were on the case. The strawberries were responsible for a hepatitis A outbreak that prompted Aldi to recall large quantities of frozen Simply Nature Organic Strawberries from select stores in 12 states. The grocer's strawberry supplier was Scenic Fruit Company LLC of Gresham, Oregon. Costco and Trader Joe's also recalled frozen strawberries and fruit blends containing strawberries. Scenic fruit recalled 325,692 pounds of strawberries in total.
The federally-led investigation to determine the source of the hepatitis A outbreak led to farms in Baja California, Mexico. Investigators were able to match the hepatitis A virus (HAV) strain to a strain that caused a hepatitis A outbreak in 2022. In both cases, the adulterated strawberries came from the same farm. Hepatitis A transmission involving food typically occurs when traces of fecal matter contaminated with the virus makes direct contact with the water source treating the food or the food itself.
Aldi's frozen plant-based foods game is strong, but these vegan-friendly items are just as susceptible to foodborne pathogens as animal products. On October 7, 2022, Cuisine Innovations Unlimited, LLC recalled traditional falafel and garlic & herb falafel it produced for Aldi's private label Earth Grown Vegan. The falafel was suspected to be contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC).
Although STEC bacteria is most often associated with undercooked beef, it can also be present in water and raw vegetables — especially those grown in manured gardens. The high-risk falafel was sold in Aldi locations in 37 states and Washington D.C. a whopping 19 lot numbers were implicated in the recall. The boxes of frozen falafel were shipped to Aldi stores as early as June 24, 2021.
In total, 143,145 pounds of falafel were recalled, it didn't happen soon enough. Between July 4, 2022 and September 19, 2022, 20 people in six states became ill after eating falafel from Aldi. Five individuals required hospitalization. Since the recall, Aldi continues to sell multiple frozen meatless products under the Earth Grown Vegan label, however, falafel does not appear to be one of them. Luckily, frozen falafel lovers can find plenty like this traditional falafel from Afia.
Frozen crispy chicken strips were under siege in March 2019, when the USDA recalled over 69,000 pounds because they contained pieces of metal. Two types of chicken strips from Aldi's in-house label Kirkwood were named in the recall. Since the manufacturer responsible for the contamination was resident poultry king Tyson Foods inc., Aldi was one of several brands to have its frozen crispy chicken strips pulled from stores alongside Tyson's eponymous chicken strips.
This was just the tip of the iceberg for Tyson. Prior to the March recall, the company was made aware of two individual complaints made to the FSIS regarding consumers finding metal fragments inside frozen chicken strips. On May 4, 2019, Tyson expanded the recall to include another 11 million pounds of chicken. The final quantity of the recall tipped the scales at 11.8 million pounds and included Tyson-produced strips with use by dates between October 1, 2019 and March 7, 2020. As the recall was expanding, four more complaints from consumers finding metal in their chicken were reported. Three of those cases resulted in oral injury.
What made the expansion so humongous was Tyson's decision to recall frozen chicken strips bound for the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, Bermuda, and Hong Kong. In the aftermath, Tyson discontinued certain equipment thought to be associated with the metal pieces getting into the chicken. A rep for Tyson also said the company would be upgrading its existing metal-detection system in favor of X-Ray metal detectors.
There was a chilling absence in Alid's ice cream section in January 2018 after three of its Sundae Shoppe products fell victim to a recall. Orange Cream Bars, Raspberry Cream Bars, and Ice Cream Bars sold under the Sundae Shoppe banner were shuttered away from consumers over fears that some of the products contained Listeria monocytogenes. Routine testing in Fieldbrook Foods' Dunkirk, New York plant revealed the presence of listeria bacteria in some of the finished product samples.
The initial recall related to this discovery was issued on January 5, 2018, and did not make mention of any Aldi ice creams. Orange Cream Bars sold under the Tops brand and Meijer Purple Cow were the only items affected. Four days later, Aldi's luck ran out when the recall expanded. The listeria contamination was narrowed down to a single production line in one of Fieldbrook Foods' plants, however, the recall expansion spread to chocolate coated vanilla ice cream bars and covered over 20 more brands.
Sundae Shoppe Raspberry Cream Bars weren't part of Fieldbrook Fields' recall, but because they were sold in a variety pack with Orange Cream Bars and the chocolate coated ice cream bars they had to be recalled as well. Fieldbrook Farms suspended production on the line where the listeria was found while it worked to remedy the situation. The recalled products totaled over 539,000 cases.
The convenience of ready-made frozen meals got a little bit trickier when a select number of Aldi's Fusia frozen stir fry were recalled in March 2017. The voluntary recall was initiated by Aldi due to a possible Listeria contamination. Aldi's Fusia Asian Aspiration line hosts numerous incarnations of frozen stir fry — including customer favorite Teriyaki Stir Fry — but only its Szechuan Stir Fry was part of the recall.
Aldi is a master of prepackaged grocery goods, so every product it sells is made by outside food manufacturers. To create Fusia stir frys, Aldi relies upon Versa Marketing Inc., a company based in Fresno, California. Versa Marketing's Szechuan Stir Fry was only distributed to Aldi stores. The FDA was tipped off that something was amiss with this particular stir fry blend after testing of the finished product by health officials in Florida turned up a positive result for Listeria monocytogenes.
Upon receiving the test results, Versa Marketing ceased distribution of the stir fry. No reported illnesses were linked to Aldi's recall, but consumers who may still have the product in their freezers were urged to throw it away (those looking for a refund were instructed to call a toll free number for assistance). A single lot code of Fusia Szechuan Stir Fry was recalled due to the listeria risk. A total of 4,089 cases of stir fry were recalled.
April 2017 was not the season for Aldi's Season's Choice Garden Fresh Sweet Peas. A massive recall sent bags of these frozen peas flying out of commercial freezers due to listeria concerns. The ordeal marked Aldi's second major recall for frozen vegetables in less than a year. As just about every Aldi food recall goes, the factors behind the frozen peas recall were traced back to one of Aldi's many suppliers. Season's Choice Garden Fresh Sweet Peas were produced by Lakeside Foods Inc., a manufacturer from Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Lakeside Foods recalled the peas after retail samples tested by health officials in Florida came back positive for Listeria monocytogenes. No other Lakeside Foods products were affected by the recall, but the company ceased the production of sweet peas when the bacterial contamination came to light. The recall applied to nine lot codes of product, which were distributed to Aldi stores in Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
The FDA gave the recall a Class II designation -– as opposed to the more serious Class I filing. The recall wasn't linked to any reported illnesses, yet Aldi and Lakeside Foods' precautionary measures took down a lot of peas. Thousands of cases of Season's Choice peas were removed from stores. Since the frozen peas were sold in one-pound packages, the total quantity of the recall amassed 1,339,392 pounds.
If there was ever a home freezer staple, frozen vegetables are it. In late April 2016, the CDC informed the public that a listeriosis outbreak was taking hold across North America and the culprits were frozen vegetables (and a select amount of frozen fruit). Three days earlier, CRF Frozen Foods recalled 15 frozen vegetable products. The CDC investigation regarding the outbreak — which had been ongoing since September 2013 — used whole-genome sequencing to trace the listeria contamination to CRF. Up to that point, Aldi's frozen produce was unaffected.
Nine reports of listeriosis the CDC examined between 2013 and 2016 were traced back to CRF. All of the sickened individuals were hospitalized and three of them died. CRF expanded the recall on May 2, 2016 to include all fruit and vegetables manufactured in its Pasco, Washington plant. The expansion prompted Aldi to recall bags of frozen sweet peas, frozen sweet corn, and steamable mixed vegetables sold under the chain's private label, Season's Choice. The potentially adulterated vegetables were sold at Aldi locations in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio.
The recalled Season's Choice frozen vegetables were three out of over 350 products sold by 42 different brands that were at risk of containing listeria. Listeria monocytogenes pose a unique threat to frozen foods because the bacteria is able to thrive in cold temperatures. In the end, CRF recalled 164,288,373 pounds of frozen produce.
Fans of Aldi's frozen beef lasagna and spaghetti Bolognese got a taste of something unexpected in 2013. Food recalls due to undeclared ingredients are common, but some frozen Italian meals sold by Aldi locations in Europe contained a different type of meat entirely — horse meat. Aldi recalled the tainted dinners, but the details behind the horse meat scandal were rather complex.
Aldi wasn't the only grocery chain to find horse meat in its beef products. European retailers like Tesco and Lidl were recalling frozen beef burgers by the millions after Irish health authorities announced that horse meat was discovered in patties labeled as 100% beef. An investigation gave way to a tangled web of food suppliers. Aldi, whose recalled frozen pasta dishes contained up to 100% horse meat, pointed the finger at frozen food manufacturer, Findus. In turn, Findus blamed its meat supplier.
Findus' meat supplier, the French food brand Comigel, claimed that its supplier Spanghero, was purchasing horse meat from Romania and fraudulently labeling it as beef. When Romania outlawed horse-pulled street vehicles in the mid 2000s, slaughtering the horses for their meat and exporting it cheaply throughout Europe became a prevalent practice. In 2019, Spanghero's former director, Jacques Poujol, served four months in jail for fraud and was banned from the commercial meat industry for two years.
Aldi couldn't escape the salmonella outbreak that rocked America's food industry at the start of 2009. On January 31, three ice cream cone varieties sold under Aldi's in-house brand Sundae Shoppe were recalled due to a potential salmonella contamination. Sundae Shoppe was one of over two thousand brands forced to recall products in connection with a gargantuan recall issued by peanut and peanut butter wholesaler Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). The salmonella outbreak caused by PCA's negligence was one of the deadliest U.S. food recalls of all time.
Aside from the more than 700 reported cases of illness and nine deaths attributed to the outbreak, what made the PCA recall so shocking was learning that then-CEO Stewart Parnell knew the company's peanut products were contaminated and shipped them anyway. Aldi's recall was part of a two larger recalls initiated by Ice Cream Specialties and Fieldbrook Foods Corporation, Aldi's suppliers. Ice Cream Specialties recalled all ice creams containing peanuts produced in its Indiana plant, including three lot codes of Sundae Shoppe cones intended for sale at Aldi stores. Fieldbrook Foods in Dunkirk, New York, did the same.
Sundae Shoppe was one of 25 brands named in Ice Cream Specialties' recall while Fieldbrook Foods recall named 44 brands. In 2015, Parnell was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his role in PCA's deadly cover-up, the longest sentence ever given in a food recall case. His brother, Michael, was sentenced to 20 years.
Tyson, the nation's leading chicken manufacturer, certainly knows its way around a product recall — the company has had dozens of them in the last 20 years. Back in February 2001, problems with its frozen chicken spread so far and wide that many other brands were affected. Among the scroll of recalled products was Aldi's Kirkwood Breaded Chicken Southern Style and Breast Fillets. Tyson's chicken was recalled because it was improperly cooked.
Tyson's Chick'n Quick plant in Rogers, Arkansas was responsible for the issue. At the plant, large chicken pieces were folded or overlapping during processing, which led to them not being cooked thoroughly. Not only does improperly cooked chicken present an acute risk of food-borne illness, all of the recalled packages of chicken stated that the product inside was fully pre-cooked.
The USDA pulled Tyson's chicken under a Class I recall, stating that deviation during processing caused the chicken to be undercooked. Aside from Tyson name-brand chicken and Aldi's Kirkwood label, eight other brands of chicken were implicated in the 2001 recall. A total of 2,300,000 pounds of chicken were pulled from distribution.
Read the original article on Mashed.