USDA Recalls 264 Pounds of De Todito Chips Over Uncertified Colombian Pork

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced a recall Wednesday, September 9, of roughly 264 pounds of De Todito-brand potato chip products because they contain chicharrón, or pork cracklings, produced in Colombia. Colombia is not currently certified to export any meat or poultry products to the United States, according to FSIS.

The recalling company, El Eden Import Distributor Corp of Long Island City, New York, imported the affected products on July 28. They were shipped to a distributor and retail locations in New Jersey and Utah, according to the FSIS recall notice. The recalled items are 45-gram foil bags of De Todito Natural and De Todito BBQ mixed chips containing chicharrón Americano Jacks, Margarita and NatuChips varieties. None of the bags carry the import markings federal rules require.

FSIS only found out about the shipment after a consumer complaint flagged the products. This wasn't caught by routine inspection at the port. It surfaced because somebody called it in.

What Class I actually means here

FSIS labeled this a Class I recall, its highest of three risk tiers, defined as a situation with "reasonable probability that use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death." Headlines from the Daily Mail, Elrisala, and The News International leaned hard on that phrase, some running variations of "probability of death" in their own headlines.

The classification is about the import violation, not a confirmed pathogen. As the Daily Mail and Newsweek both note, a country's ineligibility to export to the U.S. "does not necessarily mean the products are unsafe." It means the USDA has not certified that country's meat inspection system as equivalent to America's own. The FSIS equivalence process checks things like government oversight, inspection staffing, sanitation controls, and traceability procedures. Colombia hasn't cleared that bar for meat and poultry, so anything with pork in it that comes from there, certified safe or not, is barred outright.

FSIS itself has confirmed there are no reported illnesses or injuries tied to these chips. The agency's concern is that bags may still be sitting in pantries in New Jersey and Utah, not that anyone has gotten sick.

The bureaucratic reality behind the recall

This is a paperwork failure with a scary label attached. El Eden's owner, Humberto Gallego, has not issued a public statement beyond the contact information FSIS listed for consumer questions, according to NTD. FSIS said it will run standard effectiveness checks to confirm the distributor pulls the product from retail shelves and will publish a list of specific store locations once available.

The underlying rule exists for a reason. If a country's meat inspection system hasn't been vetted by USDA, American regulators genuinely don't know what sanitation, disease-control, or traceability standards were followed. The "reasonable probability" language in Class I reflects real uncertainty, not a confirmed hazard.

Part of a bigger recall summer

This recall lands amid what NPR's David Folkenflik and Rutgers food microbiologist Don Schaffner describe as a heavy stretch for food safety headlines. Schaffner told NPR the country has seen Cyclospora in lettuce, salmonella in jalapeños and eggs, and E. coli in frozen blueberries this year, on top of a fresh FDA notice about E. coli and salmonella in sprouts. Schaffner's take is blunt: he doesn't believe recalls are actually happening at a higher rate than before. He thinks the public has simply been sensitized by one big outbreak, a Cyclospora surge centered in Michigan and Ohio, and is now noticing every recall that comes after it.

Separately, FSIS also recalled ready-to-eat pork guanciale products earlier in September over possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination, according to Newsweek. That recall is unrelated to the De Todito chips and involved a different distributor and a confirmed pathogen risk rather than a certification issue.

Anyone holding a bag of De Todito Natural or BBQ mixed chips bought in New Jersey or Utah should check for the chicharrón varieties named in the recall and either toss them or return them to the retailer. FSIS has not identified any specific store names yet and says a list will be posted on its recalls webpage once compiled. Consumers with questions can call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline or file a report through the agency's Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System.