We'd venture to guess that chicken salad sales are at their peak height during the summer. It is after all, the perfect packable picnic food for parks, beaches, and just about any outdoor oasis. So, going along with that assumption, we'd also imagine that this past patriotic holiday weekend in the states must've marked quite the spike in those seasonal sales. Grabbing a pint of the store-bought stuff definitely makes life easier, especially when you're trying to maximize time spent outside. Except for when those fresh chunks of chicken are actually fresh chunks of fish. Party fowl? (Sorry, we couldn't resist.) Seems like it.
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The grocery chain just announced a recall on its buffalo-style chicken salad — a whopping 404 pounds worth of the stuff to be exact. Why? Because those hundreds of pounds of chopped chicken meat turned out to be tuna. According to Mashable, the chicken salad distributer (Willow Tree Poultry Farm in Massachusetts) incorrectly labeled the 12.5 oz. packages. They were then shipped off and distributed to 35 WFM locations across several states on the East Coast (i.e. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut). It was a Whole Foods employee who first smelled something fishy when noticing that one of the plastic "chicken" containers was in fact filled with cranberry apple tuna salad. Whoops.
Aside from tuna haters, the more pressing concern with this meat mixup is allergy-related. So if you happened to purchase a pack from any WFM location over this past weekend (within any one of the above listed states) be sure to check the USDA's inspection mark for number P-8827 before consuming. You can toss the tuna product or return it to the nearest Whole Foods' location for a refund or replacement. But, if you've already happened to stick a fork in it, or whip up a chicken salad sandwich, and something seemed a little fishy — it was.