Wild Garlic Pesto Recalled Due to Plastic Fragments

In May 2026, the Food Safety portal of Luxembourg published the recall of Pesto Bärlauch, frisch (fresh wild garlic pesto) from a sector company, batch 296904, sold between May 15 and 19, 2026, with minimum durability date July 12, 2026, due to possible presence of small hard plastic fragments of blue color. A commercial brand, in coordination with the Belgian food safety agency (AFSCA), determined that the fragments likely originated from a collection box used during the harvest of wild garlic. Customers were recommended not to consume the product and return it to the point of sale for reimbursement.

That the source of contamination traced back to a collection box used in the field, and not to equipment at the processing plant, illustrates a frequent blind spot in products made with wild or semi-wild harvested ingredients such as wild garlic: unlike a controlled crop, harvesting wild plants depends on field equipment—boxes, baskets, cutting tools—whose state of conservation and material composition are not always subject to the same quality control as equipment at a certified processing plant.

For TAAG, this finding confirms that traceability of wild-harvested ingredients must extend to the equipment used in the harvest field, a supply chain link that frequently falls outside the scope of quality control systems designed for fixed processing facilities.