Lean Cuisine Recalls One Hour Of Food

The tipster who sent us a link to this Lean Cuisine recall asks, "Most confusing recall I’ve seen — figure out the HOUR your plastic-contaminated Lean Cuisine spaghetti & meatballs was produced?" We're inclined to agree.

The Nestlé USA announcement of its "Voluntary Recall of LEAN CUISINE® Simple Favorites Spaghetti with Meatballs" outlines some exceptionally confusing details, especially that the "voluntary recall is limited to this one hour of production."

The announcement goes on:

"The reason for the recall is that the product may contain pieces of red plastic. Nestlé is taking this action after a few consumers reported they had found red plastic in the meatball portion of the entrée… For this reason, Nestlé is reaching out to consumers to ask that they examine their freezer inventory for specific packages of LEAN CUISINE® Simple Favorites Spaghetti with Meatballs, UPC 13800-10390, which would carry the production code 0298595519 P.  To locate the production code, consumers should look for the gray “proof of purchase” panel, located on the right end flap of the package, below the ingredient statement."

There's no mention of it (that we can find) on the brand's website, but on its Facebook page, Lean Cuisine notes that it is recalling this one particular hour of food because of the brand's "dedication to food quality, and concern for the health and safety of our consumers." The comments on the page suggest consumers are a little confused.

The recall is clearly a way for Lean Cuisine to send the message that it is not ignoring complaints about the hard red plastic chunks — which could get lost in the red tomato sauce — that were found in this batch of its popular frozen entrée. That said, we have to agree that it is the most confusing recall we've ever seen.