USDA Recalls Nearly 12 Tons of Buffalo Chicken Appetizers Sold to New England Restaurants

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced late Wednesday that a Boston food-service supplier shipped nearly 25,000 pounds of frozen Buffalo chicken appetizers to restaurants and bars across five New England states over the past year without ever holding a valid federal inspection grant to make them.

Shanghai Ravioli Corporation, operating out of a plant on Howard Street in the Roxbury section of Boston, is recalling approximately 24,900 pounds of frozen, not-ready-to-eat "Buffalo Chicken Rangoon" and "Benedetto's Buffalo Chicken Mozzarella Stick," according to the recall notice posted to FSIS's public recalls database. The products left the plant carrying the official mark of federal inspection under establishment number "EST. 18004" even though, FSIS says, that establishment does not currently hold a grant of inspection allowing it to produce meat and poultry products under federal law.

The Numbers

The recalled inventory spans nearly a full year of production. FSIS records list production dates running from July 8, 2025, through June 29, 2026, with "sell by" dates on the boxes stretching from July 8, 2026, all the way to June 29, 2027. The Buffalo Chicken Rangoon shipped in cases of 100 pieces; the mozzarella sticks, branded "Benedetto's," shipped in cases of 120. The frozen product moved exclusively to food-service accounts — not grocery shelves — in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

• Approximately 24,900 pounds recalled, or nearly 12.5 tons
• Roughly 11 months of continuous production under an inspection mark FSIS says the plant was not authorized to use
• Five states reached through food-service distribution channels
• Zero confirmed illnesses reported to FSIS as of the announcement

FSIS classifies this type of action under its own long-running "Produced Without Benefit of Inspection" recall category — a designation reserved for products that left a plant carrying USDA marks the facility was not entitled to use, regardless of whether contamination has been confirmed. The concern is procedural as much as microbiological: without an active inspector verifying sanitation, ingredient labeling and allergen controls, the agency has no assurance the products meet federal food-safety standards at all.

Both recalled items are labeled "not ready to eat," meaning kitchens that bought them were expected to fully cook the rangoon and mozzarella sticks before serving, which would address most bacterial risk on its own. That distinction does not resolve FSIS's concern in this case, however, because the recall is not built around a specific detected pathogen. It is built around the absence of any federal inspector checking the plant's sanitation practices, ingredient sourcing and allergen labeling for the better part of a year — a gap that cooking temperature alone cannot fill, since undeclared allergens and mislabeled ingredients would still reach a diner's plate regardless of how thoroughly the food was cooked.

How a Plant Keeps Shipping Without a Federal Inspector

FSIS's public database lists Shanghai Ravioli Corporation's federal grant as dating to November 18, 2011, and the establishment's status is now listed as inactive — meaning that, at some point, the plant either let its inspection status lapse or had it withdrawn, while product bearing its old federal mark kept moving through the supply chain. FSIS has not said in its notice exactly when the plant's status changed relative to the July 2025 start of the recalled production run.

The recall traces to routine field work rather than an illness complaint. Investigators from FSIS's Office of Investigation, Enforcement and Audit conduct what the agency calls in-commerce surveillance — unannounced checks of warehouses, distributors and other businesses handling meat and poultry, aimed at catching product moving through commerce outside the inspected system. That is how this case surfaced, according to reporting on the notice by the trade publication Food Safety News, which reviewed the FSIS filing.

The case is not isolated. FSIS has opened a string of "produced without benefit of inspection" actions against small meat and poultry operators so far in 2026, including recalls tied to Sabrositos Hondureños LLC, King Tallow LLC, Afandina Halal and Indus Foods LLC's Gangothri Foods brand — a pattern that points to gaps in oversight of smaller producers supplying ethnic and specialty food-service niches rather than any single company's failure.

"Food produced without inspection may contain undeclared allergens, harmful bacteria, or other contaminants that put consumer health and safety at risk," FSIS said in its recall notice.

Who Is Affected

Because the product moved through food-service distribution rather than retail, ordinary shoppers cannot check their own freezers against this recall the way they might with a supermarket item. The exposure instead runs through the kitchens that bought the cases: restaurants, bars, caterers and other food-service operators in the five affected states that stocked Buffalo Chicken Rangoon or Benedetto's-brand mozzarella sticks as menu appetizers, a category especially common on pub and bar-food menus across New England. FSIS is directing those establishments not to serve the recalled cases and to either destroy them or return them to their supplier. Diners who ate the appetizers at an affected restaurant would have no way of independently identifying the product on a plate; the agency has reported no illnesses connected to consumption.

Reporting on the notice by Fox Business similarly found no confirmed cases of illness tied to the products as of the recall's announcement, consistent with FSIS's own filing.

What Happens Next

FSIS's notice does not indicate any additional recalls are planned in connection with this case, and the agency has not said whether Shanghai Ravioli Corporation faces further enforcement beyond the recall itself. The agency continues to ask food-service operators and consumers who have concerns about a specific product to contact the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854), which is staffed on weekdays. Beyond this single case, the recurrence of "produced without benefit of inspection" actions this year is likely to keep drawing attention to how FSIS's in-commerce surveillance teams — rather than the routine daily inspection system that covers licensed plants — serve as the last line of defense for catching product that has fallen outside federal oversight entirely, sometimes for months before anyone outside the supply chain notices.