FDA warns against smoked sprats after Queens seafood company refuses recall

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday told consumers not to eat, and retailers not to sell or serve, cold smoked sprats made by a Queens, New York, seafood processor, after the company refused the agency's request to recall the product voluntarily. The public health alert, dated October 23, 2026, says an FDA inspection found the firm, D&M Smoked Fish Inc., doing business as Haifa Smoked Fish Inc., was producing the small smoked fish without the controls required to prevent growth of Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium responsible for botulism, and the formation of its toxin.

The FDA said it recommended that the company recall all cold smoked sprats currently on the market. The firm declined. Rather than let the matter drop, the agency published its own advisory describing the product, the hazard and the company's refusal — a step the FDA takes far less often than an ordinary recall notice, since most firms agree to pull products once the agency flags a safety problem.

What the alert covers

The sprats are sold in bulk cardboard boxes and shipped refrigerated; the FDA notes they can be kept frozen for up to a year, which means product bought weeks or months ago could still be in a freezer. Labels pictured in the alert show product code 302M and lot number 261, marked "C/Smoked Holland Sprats," but the agency said the warning applies to all lots the company has shipped, not just that one. Because the fish is often repackaged or sold loose at seafood counters and in restaurants, it may reach consumers with no label identifying the source at all.

Confirmed distribution covers Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, through retailers, restaurants, wholesalers and food-service accounts, though the FDA said the product "may have been distributed further." Shipping records list the company's address as 94-15 150th Street in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens. The agency has not reported any confirmed illnesses tied to this specific product as of the alert's publication, but it is urging anyone who cannot confirm whether sprats in their refrigerator or freezer came from this company to throw them out rather than taste or smell them for signs of spoilage.

That instruction reflects a basic feature of botulism risk: contaminated food frequently looks, smells and tastes normal. The toxin, not visible spoilage, causes illness, and by the time symptoms appear the contamination cannot be detected by a consumer's senses.

Why small, ungutted fish carry extra risk

Sprats, like herring and other small oily fish, are traditionally prepared without being gutted, since their size makes evisceration impractical at commercial scale. That tradition is also the specific food-safety problem regulators have tracked for decades. Clostridium botulinum spores concentrate in the digestive tract of fish, and smoking or curing a fish with its viscera intact — without additional steps such as sufficient salt, acid or heat treatment to control the bacterium — can allow the organism to survive and, in a low-oxygen, refrigerated environment, produce toxin. The FDA's own compliance guidance has long flagged salt-cured, smoked or pickled fish products as a category requiring specific controls, and a standing import alert covering uneviscerated or partially eviscerated salt-cured, dried, smoked, pickled or fermented fish cites "a well-documented history of botulism" associated with the category.

This is not the first time D&M Smoked Fish or its Haifa brand has drawn FDA scrutiny over exactly that hazard. In March 2011, the company recalled cold smoked sprats and Haifa-brand schmaltz herring after New York State inspectors found the fish had not been properly gutted before processing, and the company had an earlier Listeria-related recall covering more than 20 smoked-fish products in 2010. More recently, the firm recalled 8-ounce packages of Haifa cold smoked salmon and cold smoked seabass in September 2025 after testing found possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, a recall the FDA classified at its highest risk level. None of those earlier actions involved a refusal to recall; this appears to be the first time the company has declined an FDA recommendation outright, according to coverage of the advisory by Food Safety News and the law-firm-run food-safety site Food Poison Journal.

Who is likely affected

Sprats sold this way typically move through smaller, often ethnic grocery stores, delicatessens and restaurant kitchens rather than large chain supermarkets, which makes tracing individual purchases harder than with a single branded retail item. Shoppers who bought smoked sprats in bulk, by weight, from a seafood counter or deli case in the four confirmed states — or who were served smoked sprats as a prepared dish — may have no receipt or label connecting the fish to this company. The FDA's advice in that situation is blunt: if there is any doubt about the source, discard the product rather than eat it.

Restaurants, wholesalers and other food-service operators that bought from D&M or Haifa directly are being told not to serve or resell any remaining stock, and to check with their own suppliers if they are uncertain where their sprats originated.

Symptoms and what to watch for

Foodborne botulism is rare but serious, and untreated cases can progress to respiratory failure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists the following as common early signs:

• Double or blurred vision, and drooping eyelids
• Slurred speech and difficulty swallowing
• Dry mouth and a thickened feeling in the tongue
• Muscle weakness that can spread downward through the body

Symptoms typically begin 18 to 36 hours after eating contaminated food, though onset can range from as little as six hours to as long as ten days, according to the FDA's advisory. Because the illness is treatable with prompt medical care — including a botulism antitoxin available through state health departments and the CDC — the agency is urging anyone who develops these symptoms after eating smoked fish to seek emergency care immediately rather than wait to see whether symptoms resolve.

What happens next

The FDA alert says it will be updated "as the agency receives more information," which typically includes any additional lots, retailers or states identified as the investigation continues. The agency has mandatory recall authority under federal law for most food products when a firm refuses a voluntary recall and FDA determines there is a reasonable probability the product is adulterated or misbranded in a way that could cause serious health consequences, but invoking that authority is a formal, multi-step process that takes longer than issuing a public warning, which is why the advisory — rather than an enforced recall — is the agency's first move. Given the company's recurring history of recalls tied to the same underlying hazard, consumer-safety advocates who track foodborne illness litigation are likely to watch closely for whether the FDA follows up with a more formal enforcement action. For now, the agency's instruction to the public remains simple: if sprats in a refrigerator or freezer cannot be confirmed as coming from a different source, they should be thrown away, not tasted.