By Habib Sabet/VtDigger
Cabot Creamery has issued a voluntary recall for nearly a ton of butter due to potential fecal contamination, the brand’s parent company, Agri-Mark Inc., announced April 9.
The recall covers 189 cases of the iconic Vermont brand’s 8-oz. Extra Creamy Premium Butter across Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Arkansas, amounting to just over 1,700 pounds, according to a statement from the company.
Since the announcement, Cabot has had to contend with a wave of national news stories that Nicole Junas, a spokesperson for the brand, said “have unintentionally overstated the situation,” despite the minimal risk posed by the potentially contaminated product.
The FDA has categorized the recall as “Class 3,” the least serious category of recall, indicating that the product is “not likely to cause adverse health consequences,” according to the agency’s website.
Prior to the recall, just 17 packages of the butter — 34 sticks in total — were sold to consumers, all of whom purchased the product in Vermont, according to the company.
The company prompted the recall after testing revealed elevated amounts of coliform bacteria, which could suggest fecal contamination, the company said in the statement. No illnesses or complaints have been reported.
Although Agri-Mark initiated the recall process on March 26, according to records from the Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency did not appear to formally release information about the recall until Wednesday, a two-week delay that company and state officials were unable to account for Thursday.
“I know the Cabot team has been in contact with the FDA since the start. But we are unaware of why there was a delay,” Junas said in an email to VTDigger. The FDA did not immediately respond to VTDigger’s request for comment.
“FDA’s procedures on recalls is a federal process that the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets (VAAFM) is not privy to,” E.B. Flory, food safety and consumer protection division director at the state agriculture agency, said in a written statement.
According to Flory, Agri-Mark alerted state officials last week that they had initiated and completed the recall before April 4, recovering 95.5% of the potentially tainted butter.
The product code for the recalled butter is UPC 0 78354 62038 0, and all recalled items have an expiration date of Sept. 9, 2025, according to an enforcement report from the Food and Drug Administration.
“Agri-Mark has identified the cause and has taken the appropriate internal actions to address it,” the company said in its statement. “No other products were affected. Agri-Mark is dedicated to food safety and producing quality products and is always monitoring its products for compliance.”
