CNN – I was doing my regular weekly grocery shopping just before Christmas when I happened to cut through the baby formula aisle to get to the dairy section at the back of the store.
Looking up, I saw something that made me double back: at least one can of ByHeart powdered infant formula on the shelf of my local Kroger, with its recall notice from November taped underneath .
I stopped and snapped a photo with my cell phone.
I quickly sent it to my editor and several experts I work with on food safety stories, thinking I’d missed some development, but they all had the same reaction.
“This is nuts,” responded food safety attorney Bill Marler, who is representing several families of babies who developed infant botulism after drinking ByHeart formula. Coincidentally, that same day, he was amending the complaints he had filed to include the retailers where his clients purchased the formula, saying they hadn’t acted fast enough to get it off shelves.
When I sent the photo to Kroger, the company’s press office responded with this statement:
“When the recall was issued, we urgently removed the affected product and immediately placed a block at the point of sale to make it impossible for a customer to purchase the recalled item. These measures are part of Kroger’s internal recall protocol [that] ensures compliance with FDA recall guidelines to protect customers.”
I didn’t test the point-of-sale block, since I didn’t try to buy the formula. The company didn’t explain why it had been left on the shelf. I also reported it to the US Food and Drug Administration, through a consumer complaint portal.
Kroger was one of four companies, along with Target, Albertsons and Walmart, that were sent warning letters by the US Food and Drug Administration on December 12, after inspectors found cans and single-serving packs of ByHeart for sale in those stores across 36 states, after all lots of the product were recalled …
