Pilgrim’s Pride Recall: 4.5M Pounds Of Chicken Products May Contain Plastic, Wood, Rubber, Metal

In yet another example of unexpectedly crunchy, contaminated food, Pilgrim’s Pride is busy getting the news out about a recall of more than four million pounds of pre-cooked poultry products that could contain unwanted additions like plastic, wood, rubber, or metal bits.

The company is pulling 4,568,080 pounds of fully cooked chicken products over the concern that they could contain extraneous, inedible materials, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced.

The products were sold in stores under the Gold Kist Farms, Pierce, and Sweet Georgia brands, and were produced on various dates between Aug. 21, 2014 and March 1, 2016.

And while there’s a very long list of products involved in the recall, as one might expect with more than four million pounds of products getting yanked, unless you’re in the food service industry and purchasing 30- or 20-pound boxes of nuggets, you probably don’t have these products at home — Pilgrim’s shipped the products to grocery stores and institutions like schools. If you do find one of these products in your home, throw it out or return it to the point of purchase.

The company learned about the problem after customers complained about finding plastic in the nuggets, FSIS says, but there haven’t been any confirmed reports of health problems related to the chicken products thus far.

Click here for a full list of the products included in the recall.

Pilgrim’s Pride is far from the first food company to issue a recall over chicken with an extra, awful crunch: Perdue and Tyson Foods have both had their share of contaminated chicken nuggets in the recent past.