Check Your Freezer For 2 Of Trader Joe's Indian-Inspired Foods

A public health alert has been issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA/FSIS) for two of Trader Joe's Indian-inspired ready-to-eat frozen chicken meals after these products failed to receive an import reinspection. The two items — Trader Joe's Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice and Trader Joe's Mini Chicken Tikka Samosas — were shipped to stores in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

The items have already been removed from grocery store shelves, precluding the need for a formal recall announcement. However, the FSIS believes some of the products may already have been sold. Thus, consumers in the three states who may have purchased either of the two frozen chicken products should be on the lookout for Trader Joe's Chicken and Basmati Rice sold in 12.5-ounce packages with the best by dates of April 14 and April 16, 2023 and lot codes 208068 and 208228; and Trader Joe's Mini Chicken Tikka Samosas sold in 8.5-ounce packages with the best by date of April 14, 2023 and the lot codes 208072 and 207772. The products may also be identified by the Canadian establishment seal 913. 

The FSIS maintains reinspection protocols for imported items. After incoming shipments are cleared by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they are supposed to be reinspected by FSIS at an approved import inspection facility. The two Trader Joe's products failed to receive this import reinspection, an issue that, per the FSIS, was detected during routine surveillance.

No illnesses have been reported in conjunction with the two products listed in the public health alert — and we really don't know if anything is actually wrong with them — but the FSIS is still recommending anyone who purchased these products to either discard them or return them to the store where they were originally bought for a full refund. As stated above, the affected products have already been pulled from Trader Joe's shelves, so if you spot boxes of either Trader Joe's Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice or Trader Joe's Mini Chicken Tikka Samosas in your local store it is highly unlikely they are included in the health alert.