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Costco forced to recall 80,000 lbs of butter – because the label fails to mention it contains milk
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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Costco forced to recall food that was not labeled to the requirements. In this case, the butter is supposed to be labelled as containing milk. Now, you and me, we know that butter is made from milk or cream, but only a great fool would assume everyone knows what they know.
And, these labels aren't just for the lactose intolerant consumer. The allergen information is fed to computers that handle the automated distribution of products to various uses. That butter might end up as one of a hundred ingredients in a prepackaged donut. If the allergen isn't on the label, the person doing data entry may not realize it. Disney World killed a doctor just last year because of allergen exposure, and that shit happens all the time. It only made the news because Disney tried to enforce an arbitration clause the husband digitally accepted when he tried out Disney+.
The point is, this is not a story about overregulation or snowflakes being too sensitive. Costco fucked up, and their fuckup puts lives at risk. If you happened to buy the improperly labelled butter, congrats on your good fortune, because Costco is going to pay you for their fuckup. You don't have to discard perfectly good butter unless you cannot have dairy, and you didn't yet know that butter contains milk.
Put a sticker on it, make an announcement, done.
Right. That's what a recall is. Kirkland can't put stickers on something they have already sold.
They can announce it and that should be enough. Instead they make the butter sound like it has something wrong with it so people turn it in.
I'm really confused about what you think should be done differently. A product recall is an announcement that there's something wrong with the product, and an offer of a refund. The "something wrong" is that the allergen info was not properly labelled. It's your choice whether you want to get a refund or not.
The news media is trying to make it sound like stupid government and stupid consumer protections and stupid regulations, when in fact it was stupid manufacturing.
The completely reasonable thing you said you wanted is exactly what is happening, and you're mad about it and blaming the thing that's working exactly to your benefit and exactly the way you want it to, because that's the intent of the article.
You, right now, are being manipulated to manufacture outrage. It's being done by people who want to profit from exploiting you. They want deregulation, so they will spin every story into something that makes you angry at regulations, especially when it is entirely reasonable and good government.
I saw it reported both ways. The outrage way, where "OMG, the stupid government is wasting food" and at first the recall way, where you must return the butter because it will kill you and there is something wrong with it. There shouldn't be a recall at all, just an announcement that the butter wasn't labeled properly for people allergic to milk products.
News is a product, and hype is marketing. Getting you to consume their content is a sale, and they are comfortable lying to you to get you to read it. But notice that in both cases, the message is that government is ineffective. Either it is an overreaction or an utter failure at protecting consumers. Both are lies.
That's a recall. Even if it's just an announcement with no further action, it's called a recall. In this case, it is a Class 2 recall, which means low risk and minimal effort. Retailers and distributors cannot continue to sell an improperly labelled product, so they are returning it to the manufacturer so it can be relabelled and sold, or discarded. Consumers are told they can discard it if they have a milk allergy, or they can use it because there's nothing else wrong with it. If there is waste, it is the manufacturer's fault. The system is working as intended with good effect.
There should be a recall, because the butter wasn't properly labelled and they need to let people know, even if there is minimal risk.