Plastic in Your Sausage, Listeria in Your Burritos? Hannaford’s Troubling History of Recalls

Written By Taylor Warren

In the last few years, Hannaford has been linked to an alarming string of food recalls and advisories, from its own private-label items to branded grocery goods. The recall list includes everything from mislabeled products to serious pathogen alerts and possible contamination with foreign materials. If you’d been looking for wood in your pancakes, plastic in your sausage, or listeria in your burritos, you might have found these in Hannaford’s products.

In fact, Hannaford has averaged almost two recalls per month since January 2023. This pattern of alerts raises a serious question: How closely is Hannaford monitoring its product lines and protecting its customers?

Pathogens: The unseen threat
Pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli are among the most serious hazards in our food system, and Hannaford has issued recent recalls for all three.

Listeria can grow at refrigerator temperatures and cause serious, even deadly illness, particularly in pregnant people, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems. Likewise, salmonella and E. coli bacteria pose a significant threat to our health, causing approximately 1.35 million and 266,000 infections, respectively, in the United States every year.

The fact that Hannaford-brand frozen waffles, fresh salads, and pasta meals were all recently recalled due to Listeria contamination should raise eyebrows. And recalls tied to Salmonella or E. coli risk (such as ground-beef advisories) should trigger alarm. How many recalls related to well-known microbial hazards are consumers expected to navigate?

Undeclared allergens: A risk to many
Another recurring theme in the Hannaford recall pattern is allergen mislabeling or failure to declare allergens. This poses a health risk considering about 1 in 10 American adults and 1 in 13 American children has a food allergy.

Hannaford’s own store-brand blondies lacked the “walnuts” allergen disclosure in July 2025; Nature’s Promise veggie chips were pulled in June 2025 for undeclared wheat; and in October 2024, Hannaford’s own seafood salad was recalled for missing soy allergen info. 

Especially concerning was a recall just this past summer, when Hannaford was forced to pull its store brand Nature’s Promise Crispy Peanut Butter Cookies from shelves. The cookies, sold in bakery sections across all Hannaford stores between July 10 and August 4, 2025, contained milk, eggs, wheat, and peanuts –– ingredients that can trigger life-threatening reactions for people with food allergies. But according to the advisory, these allergens may not have appeared on the product label.

To someone with a peanut, tree-nut, soy, or wheat allergy, labeling failures like these are not mere inconveniences; they are potentially life-threatening. The repeated link to Hannaford-branded items is especially worrisome. It suggests the retailer is either sourcing products with inadequate specification controls or failing to enforce labeling standards rigorously in its private-label program.

Foreign materials: An avoidable hazard
The presence of wood, plastic, metal or other foreign objects in food is both disturbing and preventable. The regulatory guidance is clear: Hard or sharp foreign objects may lead to laceration, choking, perforation of internal tissues, or damage to teeth and gums. Companies like Hannaford have a duty to protect their customers from these injuries.

Hannaford recalls reflect this problem repeatedly. In September 2025, it recalled pancakes, sausage, and corn dogs containing possible wooden sticks. Since 2023, it has also recalled ground beef, pepperoni, beef, and chicken strips for possible foreign objects, including plastic and undisclosed materials (which leads us to wonder: what, exactly, were these foreign things in our food? We may never know!).

These recalls show that Hannaford could do more to hold its suppliers accountable, at the very least. When a major supermarket keeps pulling products for things like wood or plastic in the food, shoppers can be certain the processes behind sourcing and packaging just aren’t working the way they should.

With a pattern of recalls, can we really trust Hannaford?
Just since January 2023, Hannaford has issued nearly 60 recalls. Any one of these could have sickened or harmed consumers by causing illness, injuries, or allergic reactions. What’s troubling is that, to our knowledge, Hannaford has not been forced to pay any fines for potentially endangering customers with tainted products.

Hannaford’s history of recalls begs the question: Should consumers trust the grocery chain to prioritize their wellbeing? Every recall is a broken promise, a fallback on the company’s pledge to offer “high-quality, safe and nutritious foods.” Hannaford says it takes “that responsibility very seriously.” Its actions tell us otherwise.

As consumers in a food system run by large corporations like Hannaford’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize, we’ve almost grown to expect product recalls. These are a clear indicator that these companies prioritize profit over everything else.

But we deserve better, and Hannaford deserves to be held accountable.

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Watch recent news coverage to learn more about Hannaford’s history of recalls:

Taylor Warren
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