Popular Mac & Cheese brand recalled at Target, Stop & Shop and Safeway

A popular brand of Mac & Cheese has been recalled due to health concerns that the products may have been spoiled.

Last week, Reser's Fine Foods voluntarily recalled two varieties of its Macaroni & Cheese – the standard version and the white cheddar version.

The brand stated that a possible issue with a faulty refrigerator may have caused the 12-ounce packages to spoil.

The recalled Mac & Cheeses with the article numbers 71117.02009 and 71117.02123 were distributed in California, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The products were sold in stores such as Safeway, Stop & Shop and Target for around $4.19.

The recall has been classified as a Class II risk, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This means that the product “may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health effects or that the likelihood of serious adverse health effects is remote.”

The recall also affects a number of other Reser products, Newsweek reported. See the box to the right for more details.

Customers who have purchased one of the recalled items are advised not to consume it but to throw it away.

This comes after authorities ordered a recall of Boar's Head meat products in the fight against the largest listeria outbreak the country has seen in over a decade.

Nine people in 18 states have died and 57 have been hospitalized after millions of spoiled products from the supermarket chain sparked an outbreak of the disease.

Boar's Head began recalling meat on July 26 and expanded the list again in early August. It has since been revealed that the Virginia plant where the outbreak occurred was teeming with black mold, mildew and insects.

In addition, according to the FDA, there were more than a dozen other food recalls in the past month alone.

The recalls included items such as desserts, condiments and infant formula, the agency reported.

Most recalls are due to undeclared allergens, such as when milk is not labeled in a product.

Others, however, are usually associated with possible bacterial or lead contamination.

Meanwhile, health authorities on August 26 expanded a recall of apple juice from several well-known stores over concerns that the juice may be contaminated with carcinogenic metals.

On August 26, the FDA announced that 133,500 cases of apple juice made by Florida-based Refresco Beverages Inc. would be voluntarily removed from store shelves because it may contain inorganic arsenic, a “highly toxic” compound commonly found in contaminated water.

The affected products were sold in 26 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico at retailers Walmart, Walgreens, Aldi, Weis, Market Basket, BJ's, Dollar General, Lidl US and Brooklyn Fare.

This is an expansion of a recall initiated on August 15 that included just 9,500 cases of Walmart's Great Value apple juice.

No illnesses were reported.