{"chart":{"slug":"why-is-food-recalled","title":"Why is food recalled?","takeaway":"The most common reason is “allergen not on the label”: 2,501 of the 7,081 food recalls the FDA classified from 2013 through 2025, about 35%. Listeria (847) and Salmonella (757) come next. Chartly grouped FDA's written reasons by their key words; each recall counts once, under its first matching reason. 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":"Reason for the recall","y_label":"Food recalls since 2013","unit":null,"points_count":10,"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":"2026-10-17T18:50:41.852Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/why-is-food-recalled","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/why-is-food-recalled","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/why-is-food-recalled/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/why-is-food-recalled/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/why-is-food-recalled/embed","credit":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Enforcement Reports (openFDA food recall data), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/why-is-food-recalled)","credit_html":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Enforcement Reports (openFDA food recall data), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/why-is-food-recalled\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"Allergen not on the label","value":2501},{"label":"Listeria","value":847},{"label":"Salmonella","value":757},{"label":"Metal, plastic, glass or other objects","value":657},{"label":"Labeling, packaging or manufacturing problems","value":564},{"label":"Other germs or toxins (botulism, hepatitis A, mold...)","value":474},{"label":"Other ingredient not on the label (sulfites, dyes...)","value":401},{"label":"Lead or other chemicals","value":198},{"label":"E. coli","value":110},{"label":"Other","value":572}],"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/why-is-food-recalled)"}