Natural Grocers Recalls Organic Mung Beans Over Glass Fragments

Natural Grocers, the Lakewood, Colorado-based natural-foods chain, has recalled a batch of its store-brand organic mung beans after customers reported finding sharp glass fragments inside the bags, according to a recall notice posted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 22. The company, Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets, Inc., said in its own recall notice that it acted "after receiving customer complaints about sharp glass fragments in the product."

The recalled item is the Natural Grocers Brand Organic 2-Pound Mung Beans, sold in clear plastic bags under UPC 000080112600. No illnesses or injuries have been reported as of the recall date, the company said.

Scope of the recall

Affected bags carry one of five pack-date codes printed in the lower left corner of the label: 26-160, 26-173, 26-196, 26-224 or 26-258. In the Julian-style dating system food manufacturers commonly use, those numbers correspond to beans packaged between roughly June 9 and Sept. 15, 2026. Shipments to stores began June 10, 2026, and reached Natural Grocers locations in 22 states: Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

In its press release distributed through EIN Presswire, the company described the potential harm plainly:

"Ingesting glass fragments may cause injury to the consumer, and these injuries may include damage to teeth, cuts to the mouth or throat, or internal injury if swallowed."

The FDA, which posts such notices without endorsing the products involved, said the action "is being made with the knowledge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration." The agency has not yet published a formal risk classification — the Class I, II or III designation that typically follows an initial recall announcement by several weeks and signals how serious regulators judge the hazard to be.

Who is affected and what to do

The recall touches a specific slice of shoppers: customers of Natural Grocers' roughly 20-state footprint who bought bulk-packaged organic mung beans, a staple among health-food shoppers who use the legume in soups, salads, curries and homemade bean sprouts. The chain, which trades publicly as NYSE: NGVC and has built its identity around organic and minimally processed bulk goods, is telling anyone holding an affected bag to stop eating the product immediately. Consumers can discard the beans or return them to any Natural Grocers store for a full refund or store credit, no receipt required, the company said. Questions can be directed to Natural Grocers customer service at 303-226-1434, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mountain time, or by email to [email protected].

A pattern of self-reported recalls

This is not the chain's first voluntary pull of a bulk organic item. In November 2019, Vitamin Cottage recalled two lots of its Natural Grocers brand organic soybeans over possible mold, a recall the FDA later closed out without any confirmed illnesses. The company has also recalled organic amaranth over a possible Salmonella finding in past years. Bulk and bagged dry goods — beans, grains, seeds — are sourced through multi-step supply chains involving growers, cleaning facilities and packagers, any link of which can introduce a contaminant ranging from mold or pathogens to, in this case, a foreign object such as glass. Physical-hazard recalls like this one are less common than the microbial or allergen recalls that dominate food-safety headlines, but they are treated with the same regulatory seriousness because of the risk of choking, cuts or internal injury.

What happens next

For now, the recall remains limited to the specific pack-date codes identified by the company; Natural Grocers has not indicated that other bulk products, other mung bean lots, or other suppliers are implicated. The retailer's instructions mirror standard FDA recall protocol: stop consumption, verify the lot code against the ones listed, and seek a refund rather than attempting to sort "safe" beans from a flagged bag. The recall was logged alongside several other food-safety actions posted the same day, including unrelated allergen and pathogen recalls, underscoring how routine such bulk-food notices have become even as this one carries no reported injuries. The FDA's eventual risk classification, along with any update on whether additional illness or injury reports surface, will determine whether the episode escalates beyond a contained, single-company recall.