Weirdness

Golf Ball Fragments In Hash Browns Trigger Recall -- Wait, What?

This raises so many questions and none of the answers are appetizing.

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Hold on... putting the finishing touch on breakfast.

Hold on… putting the finishing touch on breakfast.

If you’re in the mood for some frozen hash browns this morning, you’d do well to check your label. If you’re reaching for either Roundy’s or Harris Teeter brand (UPDATE: or Wegmans’ O’Brien Hash Browns), perhaps it would be wiser to just dump those in the trash. Because McCain Foods USA, the producer of Roundy’s and Harris Teeter, warns that there could be golf ball fragments in your food.

Well that’s… wha?

In the annals of cross-contamination, this is a new one for me. It’s the rare packaged food product these days that doesn’t include a warning that “[t]his food product packaged at a facility that handles peanuts,” but how does this happen? “Here at McCain Foods USA, we pride ourselves on being America’s premiere frozen food and golfing accessory manufacturer.” Please tell me Craig Stadler was the celebrity pitchman.

It turns out the actual story of how golf balls ended up in a few breakfasts is no less weird. As Tommy Tobin explains in the University of Minnesota Law’s LawSci Forum:

In one of the most unusual food recalls in recent memory, consumers in multiple states are warned that their frozen hash browns may contain golf ball fragments. According to the voluntary recall notice, the potatoes used for these products may have inadvertently been harvested with golf balls.

This raises more (if different) questions. Is someone really working on their slice by repeatedly driving into a potato field? Have they gone and built a golf course next to the spuds? I suppose if some blindfolded caddy with big dreams of going to college struck an errant shot in Idaho it would go right into the potato farm.

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McCain has issued a voluntary recall notice and so far no one seems hungry to file any lawsuits.

That said, the Institute for Legal Reform says food litigation is the hot new thing these days. While their paper focuses on cases that, at least at first blush, sound cosmetic — such as marketing cases of “100 percent cheese” not being, in fact, only cheese — it’s worth remembering that inadvertently guzzling a Titleist is the quintessential food-based lawsuit fodder. One might say that foreign object contamination is the food class action’s bread and butter if one were also looking to spice up this article about food with some deliciously groan-inducing food references.

There’s nothing at this point to suggest that McCain acted with any negligence when it harvested a bunch of golf balls. In fact, there are no reported injuries from this incident and McCain is working with the Food and Drug Administration to keep it that way. And that’s ultimately how one can keep food safety out of costly court battles — strong regulatory agencies that keep risk at a minimum and expedite corrective action.

Because while the media oscillates between railing against mass torts and decrying burdensome federal regulation, we need to remember that we can’t… have our cake and eat it too.

Fore! Golf Ball Fragments Found In Frozen Hash Browns [LawSci Forum]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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