If you buy bread from a Caribbean bakery or independent shop, this one's worth paying attention to. FNM Bakery Limited has issued a large-scale recall of its First National Bakery products after concerns were raised about potential rodent contamination. The Food Standards Agency has classified this as a product recall, the products are considered unsafe to eat and should not be consumed under any circumstances.
This is the second rodent-related recall in recent weeks, following the MOMA porridge incident in March. It's never pleasant reading, but it's exactly the kind of alert you need to act on quickly, contamination from rodents can carry serious bacteria including Salmonella and E. coli, and there's no way to tell from looking at or smelling the bread whether it's affected.
The recall covers sixteen different products from FNM Bakery Limited, all sold under the First National Bakery name:
That's a lot of bread. If you've bought any First National Bakery product recently, check the batch code on the packaging against this list.
Rodent contamination is one of the more serious categories of food safety issue. Unlike an undeclared allergen, which is dangerous to specific people, contamination like this poses a risk to everyone. The best-before dates on these products run into early May, so some of this bread could still be sitting in kitchens right now. If you know anyone who buys from this range, it's worth passing the message along, not everyone checks food safety alerts regularly, and a quick heads-up could save someone a nasty bout of food poisoning.