Walmart pasta recall widens to cover all lots after listeria concerns

Gias Foods Inc. has expanded a recall of its Walmart-exclusive bettergoods Authentic Italian Lemon Alfredo Fettuccine to cover every lot of the frozen pasta, widening a two-week-old recall that had initially been limited to two production lots. The New York-based company's expanded notice, posted by the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, cites the continued risk that the product may carry Listeria monocytogenes, the same bacterium that prompted the original recall.

A narrow recall becomes a nationwide one

The fettuccine first came under scrutiny on September 15, when Gias Foods pulled two specific lots, L6079C and L6080C, after routine state sampling flagged possible contamination. Those lots carried expiration dates of September 19 and September 20, 2027, stamped on the back of each package. Thursday's update removes that lot-number distinction entirely: the company is now recalling all lot codes of the product, meaning any package of the item on a store shelf or in a home freezer falls under the recall regardless of its printed lot number.

The recalled item is sold frozen in 22-ounce yellow plastic packaging under UPC 194346442706, part of Walmart's bettergoods private-label line, and was distributed to Walmart stores nationwide. The company said it has stopped distributing the product and that it and the FDA are continuing to investigate the source of the contamination. As of the expanded notice, no illnesses had been reported in connection with either phase of the recall, according to the Food Safety News account of the original recall and the FDA's updated posting.

How inspectors found the bacteria

The contamination was not discovered through a consumer complaint or a reported illness. It surfaced through a routine sampling program run jointly by the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, two state agencies on opposite coasts that periodically test packaged foods for pathogens as part of ordinary surveillance work. Testing of finished product samples indicated the fettuccine may contain Listeria monocytogenes, which triggered the initial two-lot recall. Gias Foods has not publicly identified where in its production process the contamination may have occurred, and the FDA's notice describes the investigation into the cause as ongoing.

The company's own language in the recall announcement, carried verbatim on the FDA site, lays out the stakes in blunt terms:

Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria monocytogenes infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

That framing follows the standard public-health description of listeriosis, the illness caused by the bacterium, which is unusual among foodborne pathogens for the severity of its effects on specific populations even when it causes mild or no symptoms in others.

Who is most at risk

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Listeria is most dangerous to pregnant women, newborns, older adults and people with weakened immune systems. Symptoms of invasive illness, in which the bacteria spread beyond the intestinal tract, typically begin within two weeks of eating contaminated food, while intestinal symptoms alone can appear within 24 hours. The agency's own data show that, outside of pregnancy-related cases, roughly one in six people with invasive listeriosis die from the infection, a fatality rate markedly higher than that of better-known foodborne pathogens such as salmonella or E. coli.

For pregnant women, the danger is less about the mother's own symptoms, which can be as mild as a low fever, and more about the pregnancy itself: infection can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery or a life-threatening infection in a newborn. The product's nationwide distribution through Walmart, which operates roughly 4,600 stores across the United States, means the potential consumer base is not confined to a single region or chain, as can happen with recalls tied to regional grocers or farmers' markets. Because the fettuccine was sold under Walmart's own bettergoods label rather than a national pasta brand, shoppers who do not regularly check recall notices for store-brand items may be less likely to notice the alert than they would for a familiar name-brand product.

What shoppers should do now

Gias Foods is asking anyone who bought the Authentic Italian Lemon Alfredo Fettuccine, regardless of lot number, to return it to the store where it was purchased for a full refund rather than attempting to cook it or discard it untracked. The company has set up a consumer contact line at [email protected] and says it will respond to inquiries within 24 hours. Because Listeria can survive freezing, keeping the product in a home freezer does not neutralize the risk, and food-safety officials generally advise against taste-testing a product to check for contamination, since Listeria-contaminated food often shows no visible or detectable signs of spoilage.

Consumers who have eaten the product and develop fever, muscle aches, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance or convulsions, particularly if they are pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised, are advised to contact a healthcare provider and mention the possible exposure, since listeriosis is typically diagnosed through a blood test and treated with antibiotics. No cases tied to this recall had been confirmed as of Thursday.

The FDA and Gias Foods have not indicated a timeline for completing the contamination investigation, and the agency's recall notice will be updated again if the scope changes further. For now, the practical guidance for shoppers is unchanged from any other Listeria recall: check the brand name and UPC against the yellow 22-ounce package, do not rely on the lot number as a filter since the recall now covers all of them, and treat a refund at the point of purchase as the simplest and safest resolution rather than holding onto the product for any reason.