Nearly 30,000 pounds of Tyson Brand frozen, fully-cooked chicken “Fun Nuggets” have been recalled after some consumers found small metal pieces in the nuggets, the company announced on Saturday.
The recalled dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets were sold in 29-ounce plastic bag packages and distributed to retailers in Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
So far, the product has been linked to one minor oral injury, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said. People should not eat the recalled chicken nuggets, and should either throw them away or return them to the store where they were purchased.
The recalled Fun Nuggets have a “best by” date of September 4, 2024, and an establishment code P7211, printed just below. They’re also stamped with one of the following product codes:
All of the recalled chicken nuggets were produced at the same location on September 5.
The extraneous metal found in the recalled Tyson chicken nuggets is small and pliable, the company said, and it’s issuing the recall “out of an abundance of caution.”
The FSIS has listed the recall as Class I, meaning that “there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”
Though the foreign objects are small, it’s not clear what the approximate size of these metal pieces might be. The company also didn’t provide information on how the metal came to contaminate the recalled chicken nuggets.
Because the dinosaur-shaped nuggets are fully cooked and kept frozen, the FSIS said it was “concerned” that the recalled products may be in consumers’ freezers. People should check to see if any Fun Nuggets they recently purchased are included in the recall.
If someone does have a recalled bag, Tyson recommended that they cut out the product codes and “best by” dates from the packaging and discard the rest of the product. Then, people can call or text 855-382-3101.
The FSIS encouraged anyone concerned about a possible recall-related illness or injury to reach out to their healthcare provider.
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
Extraneous material contamination—or, when there’s some sort of other object in food that shouldn’t be there—is one of the top reasons meat is recalled in the U.S.
In 2022, 477,158 pounds of meat and poultry were recalled due to extraneous material contamination.
For Tyson in particular, it recalled almost 16,000 pounds of its Hillshire Farm Smoked Rope Sausage in early September after consumers found bone fragments in the product. And in November 2022, it recalled over 93,000 pounds of ground beef that could have potentially contained hard mirror-like pieces.
Other prominent foreign material contamination recalls have been issued in recent months for Kraft American Cheese Singles, Johsonville Beddar with Cheddar sausages, and a number of Trader Joe’s items.
One oral injury has been linked to the recall so far, and it’s this type of injury—plus other damage to the teeth, gums, tongue, throat, stomach, or intestines—that is the primary concern when it comes to foreign objects in food.
Usually, if the foreign material is less than 7 millimeters in dimension, it rarely causes serious injury. However, with at-risk groups such as infants, the elderly, or surgery patients, even tiny objects can pose a threat.
With Tyson’s Fun Nuggets being primarily marketed to children, it’s unclear if the risk is elevated.
