FDA Warns Parents Off Toddler Snack Bars After Reports of Severe Choking

Once Upon a Farm, a Berkeley, Calif., baby- and toddler-food company, has recalled every flavor, size and lot of its Tractor Wheels Organic Toddler Soft-Baked Bars after the Food and Drug Administration advised parents not to buy or serve the product, citing a "potentially fatal choking hazard." The agency said it had received several reports of toddlers suffering complete airway obstruction after eating the bars, with some incidents serious enough to require emergency medical response and hospital observation.

The company initiated the recall on October 30, after three consumer complaints of choking were reported to the FDA. By its own account, no injuries have been confirmed, a point that sits uneasily beside the FDA's more alarming description of what regulators were told by families. The bars, intended for children ages 1.5 to 2.5, were sold nationwide and in Puerto Rico, including at Costco, Target and Walmart, as well as online.

A snack that resists a toddler's airway

The recalled product covers three flavors — Apple, Sweet Potato & Spinach; Strawberry, Pumpkin & Beet; and Banana, Pumpkin & Cauliflower — sold individually and in multipacks and sampler boxes, with best-if-used-by dates running from October 30, 2026, through August 26, 2027, according to the company's recall notice posted by the FDA. No other Once Upon a Farm products are affected.

What distinguishes this recall from most food-safety actions is the mechanism of harm. The product is not alleged to be contaminated; the complaint is about texture. The FDA said the fruit-and-vegetable bar can rapidly absorb saliva and compact into a dense mass during chewing.

"When chewed, the product reportedly forms a dry, sticky mass that standard choking interventions — including back blows and the Heimlich maneuver — may fail to dislodge," the FDA said in its advisory.

That warning matters because it undercuts the usual first-aid response taught to parents and caregivers. The agency's advice for an active choking emergency is unchanged — attempt to clear the airway, and call 911 immediately if those measures fail — but the bulletin was explicit that the texture of this particular product may make standard interventions less reliable than parents would expect.

A fast-growing brand facing its first major test as a public company

Once Upon a Farm, co-founded nearly a decade ago by the former Annie's Homegrown executive John Foraker and the actress Jennifer Garner, built its business on cold-pressed, organic baby food sold through refrigerated pouches before expanding into shelf-stable toddler snacks. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year, and the Tractor Wheels recall is its first significant safety crisis as a publicly traded firm.

The financial fallout has been immediate. Trade coverage reported that shares fell from $15.91 before the recall to roughly $9.20 within days, as Bank of America Securities downgraded the stock from Buy to Underperform and cut its price target from $21 to $10, while TD Cowen lowered its target from $18 to $13. The recalled line represents roughly 18 percent of the company's year-to-date net sales, by its own disclosure, though it reported $106.4 million in cash, no debt, and access to up to $95 million more in borrowing capacity.

Foraker said the company is treating the episode as grounds for a broader review of the product rather than a narrow fix.

"As part of this process and a larger evaluation of Tractor Wheels products, we are reformulating these family favorites to ensure they adhere to the highest standards," Foraker said in the company's recall announcement. "We fell short of that, and that is why we are taking these aggressive actions."

Who is affected

The immediate audience is parents and caregivers of toddlers between roughly 18 months and two-and-a-half years old — the developmental window in which children are eating more solid textures but have not yet developed the chewing and swallowing coordination of older kids. Pediatric safety specialists have long flagged that age range as one of the highest-risk periods for choking on food, which is one reason the FDA's language in this case was unusually blunt for a product recall rather than a contamination notice.

Retailers that stocked the bars, including Costco, Target and Walmart, are instructed to pull remaining inventory, and the company said it is coordinating with its manufacturing partner on a root-cause review before any version of the product returns to shelves. Investors are a secondary but consequential audience: the recall lands weeks before the company's first full quarterly earnings report as a public entity, and analysts have already begun adjusting expectations for how long the lost sales and reformulation costs will weigh on results.

What happens next

Once Upon a Farm has not set a timetable for returning a reformulated version of Tractor Wheels to stores, saying only that production will resume once its internal review is complete and any formulation changes are validated. The company is scheduled to discuss the recall's financial impact on its third-quarter earnings call on November 12, after the stock market closes.

For consumers, the guidance from both the company and the FDA is straightforward:

• Do not open, serve or eat any Tractor Wheels bars, regardless of flavor, lot code or expiration date.
• Return unopened packages to the place of purchase for a full refund, or contact Once Upon a Farm at [email protected] or 1-888-983-1606.
• If a child begins choking and back blows or abdominal thrusts do not clear the airway, call 911 immediately rather than continuing to attempt first aid alone.
• Parents whose children experienced a choking incident after eating the product are encouraged to report it through the FDA's MedWatch safety-reporting program, which the agency uses to track adverse events tied to recalled products.

The FDA has not classified the recall's risk level in the terminology it typically reserves for contamination events, but its consumer-facing advisory used some of the starkest language the agency applies to a food product: a direct instruction not to buy or serve it, paired with a warning that ordinary emergency response to choking may not work. Coverage of the recall has also prompted broader questions in the food industry about texture testing for toddler snacks generally, a category that has expanded rapidly as parents look for less-processed alternatives to traditional crackers and cookies, according to reporting on the recall. Whether that scrutiny extends beyond this one product line is likely to become clearer only after Once Upon a Farm completes its root-cause review.