{"chart":{"slug":"how-serious-are-food-recalls","title":"How serious are food recalls?","takeaway":"Of the 7,081 food recalls the FDA classified from 2013 through 2025, 2,885 (about 41%) were Class I, meaning the food could cause serious harm or death, as with Listeria, Salmonella or an allergen missing from the label. 3,616 (51%) were Class II, and 580 (8%) Class III, unlikely to harm anyone. A recall with products in several classes counts in its most serious one. Meat, poultry and most egg products are USDA's to recall and aren't included.","topic":"Food and drug safety","chart_type":"bar","ranking":false,"x_label":"FDA recall class","y_label":"Food recalls since 2013","unit":null,"points_count":3,"source":{"name":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Enforcement Reports (openFDA food recall data)","url":"https://open.fda.gov/apis/food/enforcement/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work); source U.S. Food and Drug Administration, openFDA","url":"https://open.fda.gov/license/"},"data_as_of":"2025-12-31","updated_at":"2026-10-17T18:50:41.083Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls/embed","credit":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Enforcement Reports (openFDA food recall data), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls)","credit_html":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Enforcement Reports (openFDA food recall data), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"Class I: could cause serious harm or death","value":2885},{"label":"Class II: could cause temporary or minor harm","value":3616},{"label":"Class III: unlikely to cause harm","value":580}],"annotations":[]},"docs":"https://chart.ly/developers","terms":"Free to use with credit: wherever you show or quote a chart's data, name Chartly with a link to that chart's url (each chart's credit line does both) and credit its source as its license asks.","credit":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Enforcement Reports (openFDA food recall data), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/how-serious-are-food-recalls)"}