Latest news with #hazelnut
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bread sold at Kroger and Walmart in a dozen states is under recall for ‘life-threatening' problem
An Artisan-style breed sold in 12 states at popular retailers, such as Kroger and Walmart, has been recalled due to potential hazelnut contamination, the FDA says. Hartford Bakery Inc. recalled its Lewis Bake Shop Artisan Style half-loaf bread after an internal packaging error resulted in visible hazelnuts, an undeclared allergen, in some loaves. About 883 units from six production lots were mistakenly wrapped and labeled merely as 'May Contain Tree Nuts,' without specifying hazelnuts. The contamination stems from a packaging changeover from a hazelnut-containing bread batch to the white loaf variant, the company said. The recalled bread was distributed across 12 states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama and Mississippi. The company, headquartered in West Hartford, Connecticut, issued a recall for its 'Lewis Bake Shop Artisan Style 1/2 Loaf' on July 10, according to the FDA. The company warns that "people with a nut allergy or severe sensitivity to hazelnuts run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reactions" if they consume the bread. The bread is packaged in a flexible plastic bag and can be identified by lot codes T10 174010206, T10 174010306, T10 174010406, T10 174020206, T10 174020306 and T10 174020406, which appear on the front panel. The packaging also includes a net weight of 12 oz, a UPC of 24126018152 on the bottom and an expiration date of 07/13/2025 displayed on the front panel. Hartford Bakery said it had removed all products linked to the six affected production lots. The bakery had received complaints about visible nuts and reports one case of digestive discomfort, but no serious injuries or illnesses have been reported. Consumers who have purchased the affected product are being urged to return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Solve the daily Crossword
Telegraph
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Battle of the breakfast spreads – how an Algerian rival to Nutella exposed France's insecurities
El Mordjene, France's most controversial spread, is easy enough to come by in London. I find a jar in a shop by Fulham Broadway. 'It's very popular, and here it is very good price,' says the man who sells it to me, who declines to give a name to the newspaper but is happy to take £8.99 for a jar. 'El Mordjene and Dubai chocolate, both very popular in the last six months.' Why, I ask. He shrugs, with the phlegmatic air of a man who has seen enough grocery trends come and go to have given up wondering how this one in particular might have come about. When I get home I spread the El Mordjene on a cracker. It has a light gloopy texture and a sweet, hazelnutty, moreish flavour, as if it were Nutella's pale, silken cousin. I instantly have another. My wife tries it and does the same. 'Like Nutella but more sophisticated,' she pronounces. This free and easy access to El Mordjene is a privilege. Because while plenty of North African shops in London stock the spread, in France the spread has become rarer than baked beans at breakfast. Across the Channel, El Mordjene has become a political football, the subject of a bitter trade row, a social media flashpoint and a jumping-off point for an angry discussion about the relationship between Algeria and its former colonial ruler. 'El Mordjene is a show of pride for Algerians,' says Rachida Lamri, founder of Culturama, an Algerian cultural organisation in the UK. 'Algerians are known to be fond of their flags, now this is like the new flag: El Mordjene spread. We take it to our parties, take it to our friends, we feed it to our kids, make everyone taste it. It is like a joke against France. It says 'we are here, we exist, we're going to sell our products, this is our identity, and we're going to do it despite you'.' El Mordjene was launched in Algeria in 2021 by the Algerian firm Cebon. It is a mix of sugar, vegetable fat, hazelnuts, skimmed milk powder, whey, emulsifiers (such as soy lecithin) and vanilla flavoring. It quickly became popular in the domestic market. Influencers on social media touted Mordjene's superiority to Nutella, the children's breakfast behemoth made by the Italian multinational, Ferrero. Ferrero also make Ferrero Rocher and Kinder Bueno, the latter of whose smooth interior El Mordjene was said to resemble. French-African shops in France began to stock the spread, too; word of the delicious new spread quickly spread. The trouble began last September, when two shipments of El Mordjene were stopped at French customs. Initially, one of the reasons given was that the Algerian spread appeared to 'infringe' Nutella's trademarks. A couple of days later, however, the French ministry of agriculture confirmed that El Mordjene was banned within the EU because Algeria was not one of the countries permitted to export dairy products to the union. The skimmed milk powder in El Mordjene meant it was interdit. The authorities added that investigation was 'currently under way' to work out how the tasty paste crossed the Mediterranean in the first place. Prices rocketed to up to 30 euros per jar. Copycats sprung up, made in Turkey; French recipe writers described recipes for making your own at home. 'Clearly, [the French authorities] were looking for a loophole,' Amine Ouzlifi, a Cebon spokesman, told The New Yorker recently. 'They considered a bunch of options and finally settled on dairy products as the most viable.' He added that it was suspicious French authorities had only decided to enforce the rule once the spread became popular, but that he would not unnecessarily 'open the gates of Hell' by contesting the ban directly. Algerian influencers and food industry professionals took umbrage, arguing that this was classic sour grapes from their old antagonists. Some suggested the ban was down to ' seum ' – a slang term that means feeling bitter or resentful – on the French part. In France, Right-wing pundits suggested that the veiled woman depicted on the El Mordjene jar was a metaphor for Islamic values being smuggled into France. 'El Mordjene started to pose a problem the second it became a star,' Habib Merouane Hadj Bekkouche, a spokesman for the Algerian Organisation for the Protection and Orientation of Consumers and their Environment, told The New Yorker. While some wondered about a possible Ferrero-backed corporate conspiracy, most saw it as old-fashioned French protectionism. ['We'll politely decline this one,' said a Ferrero representative when approached for comment, although in other pieces a spokesman refuted the idea of Ferrero involvement.] 'It has nothing to do with Nutella,' says Lamri. 'Nutella is an institution. Not everyone was going to move to El Mordjene. France did us a favour. Mordjene has gained such popularity that maybe we are taking on Nutella. The FDA in the US have just validated Mordjene as safe. It's now being exported to the US. Who needs France?' There was another delicious twist. It turned out that offending skimmed milk powder contained in El Modjene had itself been imported to Algeria from, of all places, Brittany. It made no difference to the French attitude. The ban continues. 'We are seeing a resurgence of counterfeiting of our product and the usurption of the Cebon brand,' Ouzlifi tells The Telegraph. 'We are taking the necessary steps to counter this.' The El Mordjene contretemps has been amplified by the fraught political situation between France and Algeria. Relations have remained on a knife edge since Algeria won independence in 1962, after decades of conflict in which at least 300,000 people were killed, and possibly 1.4 million. They are currently at a low ebb. Last July, Algeria withdrew its ambassador after President Macron supported Morocco's plan for an autonomous Western Sahara. In February of this year, an undocumented Algerian went on a fatal knife rampage in Mulhouse, near the borders with Switzerland and Germany. Cebon, founded by two brothers in 1997, is emblematic of Algeria's attempts to build its own industries to compete internationally. For many Algerians, the spread row is yet more proof that France cannot bear the idea of a strong, independent Algeria. 'El Mordjene is defiance,' Lamri says. 'If you try to ban us, we will go to great lengths to still exist and be part of the dialogue. With a spread, or a flag, or a song.' And for British customers who can still get their hands on a jar, it may be the most moreish Brexit dividend yet.
