Natural Grocers Recalls Organic Mung Beans Sold in 22 States Over Glass Contamination

Natural Grocers has recalled a batch of its store-brand organic mung beans sold in 22 states after customers reported finding sharp pieces of glass in the bagged product, according to a notice posted by the Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 22. The retailer's parent company, Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets Inc., said it is not aware of any injuries linked to the product so far.

The recall covers Natural Grocers Brand Organic 2-Pound Mung Beans sold in clear plastic bags under UPC 000080112600. Only bags marked with one of five pack codes are affected: 26-160, 26-173, 26-196, 26-224 and 26-258, printed in the lower left corner of the label. The company says the implicated lots began shipping to stores on June 10 and reached outlets in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The notice does not say how many bags were distributed or how the glass got into the product, a detail that outside recall trackers covering the announcement also flagged as missing from the company's public statement.

The FDA warns that swallowing glass fragments can injure teeth, cut the mouth and throat, or perforate the gastrointestinal tract, and that small pieces also pose a choking risk. The agency's food recall and outbreak program classifies contamination with "foreign material" such as glass or metal among the hazards that can trigger a recall even without a single confirmed injury, since the risk is immediate and physical rather than infectious.

The mung bean notice was one of roughly a dozen food and drug recalls the FDA posted to its public recalls page in the two weeks between Oct. 14 and Oct. 24, a stretch that also included an allergy alert over undeclared sesame in a separate bakery item, listeria concerns tied to a cold-smoked salmon product and an imported gelato, and a particulate-contamination issue in an injectable blood thinner. The volume is a reminder that most weeks bring several such notices, the large majority of them, like this one, involving a single brand or a narrow slice of a product line rather than a widespread public-health emergency.

A closely held chain with a national footprint

Natural Grocers traces its roots to a single Lakewood, Colorado, store opened in 1955 as a door-to-door vitamin business before it grew into a specialty grocery chain. The company went public in 2012 and now trades on the New York Stock Exchange. In its most recent annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2025, the company said it had grown "from 11 stores in Colorado to 169 stores in 21 states." That filing underscores how a single packaging or supplier problem affecting one of the chain's private-label products can ripple across a large footprint quickly, since store brands like the mung beans are sold under a single UPC and pack-code system across every location that carries them.

The company has handled at least one comparable episode before. Vitamin Cottage recalled its Natural Grocers brand organic soybeans in 2019 after mold was discovered in some bags, a separate and unrelated incident involving a different product and contaminant. The new mung bean recall does not reference that earlier case, and nothing in the current notice suggests a shared cause, but it illustrates that contamination complaints tied to the company's bagged, private-label dry goods are not unprecedented.

What shoppers in the affected states should do

Vitamin Cottage is telling customers who bought the recalled mung beans to stop eating them immediately. The company's guidance, posted alongside the FDA notice, instructs shoppers to either discard the bags, double-wrapped to prevent injury to anyone handling household trash, or return them to any Natural Grocers store for a full refund or store credit, no receipt mentioned as a requirement in the notice. Customers with questions can reach the company at 303-226-1434 on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Mountain time, or by emailing [email protected].

Because the recall is limited to five specific pack codes rather than the entire mung bean line, shoppers are advised to check the code before assuming a bag is affected. The company has not said what proportion of bags within those codes actually contain glass, and the FDA notice frames the action as a precaution tied to customer complaints rather than confirmation that every recalled bag is contaminated.

Limited information, voluntary action

As is typical with early-stage recalls, several basic facts remain undisclosed. The FDA notice does not state how the glass entered the product, whether it originated at a supplier's facility or further down the packaging chain, or how many total bags are covered. It also does not yet assign the action a severity classification. Under the FDA's own recall definitions, a Class I designation applies when there is "a reasonable probability" that exposure to a product will cause serious health consequences or death; Class II covers effects that are temporary or medically reversible; and Class III covers violations unlikely to cause any adverse health consequence at all. Which category applies to the mung bean recall has not yet been published. The recall, like the large majority of FDA-regulated food recalls, is voluntary: it was initiated by the company rather than ordered by the agency, which oversees labeling and contamination issues for retail food while the U.S. Department of Agriculture separately regulates meat, poultry and egg products.

For now, the practical guidance for shoppers is unchanged regardless of those open questions: do not eat beans from the listed codes, do not try to sort or rinse out glass fragments at home, and either discard or return the product. Natural Grocers has not said whether it expects to expand the recall to additional pack codes or whether the supplier involved has been identified publicly. The FDA's enforcement notice will remain posted on the agency's recall database, which it updates as companies provide new information.