‘Choking hazard’ sports cap triggers nationwide drinks recall

UK supermarket Asda has issued a nationwide recall on a range of its own brand drinks over fears that a faulty sports cap closure could be a choking hazard.

The retail chain issued the notice on Friday on six-packs of its private label ‘Chosen By You’ range and its Great Stuff Eden Falls Water.

The company said all date codes of the drinks were affected in a raft of flavours; apple and blackcurrant, strawberry and apple, tropical, orange and apple.

“There is a possibility that the white shutter could become loose on these sports caps,” said an Asda statement. “As a result the products are being recalled on a precautionary basis.”

A spokeswoman from the firm told FoodProductionDaily.com the problem was limited to a specific number of batches and was not a generic problem with the sports closure.

No other Asda products are thought to be affected.

The supermarket launched the ‘Chosen By You’ drinks in September 2010 as part of a £100m upgrade to 3,500 private label products.

Listeria recall

A second major UK supermarket chain also issued a recall at the end of last week – this time over concerns of listeria contamination in meat.

Waitrose announced the alert over its own brand packs of Cook’s Ingredients Pulled Ham Hock, with ‘use by’ dates of 27, 29 and 31 August 2011, and one pack of its own brand Essential Corned Beef, with a ‘use by’ date of 2 September 2011, because of the possible risk of microbiological contamination.

The Food Standards Agency published a recall notice after routine testing detected the presence of listeria in the products.