Peanut butters - Eden All Natural and PnP no name - recalled after toxicity testing

Peanut butter fans: if you have Eden All Natural or Pick n Pay no name peanut butters in your cupboard, you should stop using them immediately and return them to the seller. 

Pick n Pay has issued a recall of three brands of peanut butter: its no name Smooth Peanut Butter, and Eden Smooth and Crunchy peanut butters. 

The retailer issued the alert on Saturday, saying these products had already been removed from all its stores countrywide. The products have expiry dates of between now and July 2025. 

No other peanut butters sold at Pick n Pay are involved in the recall.

Eden peanut butter — marketed as an all-natural peanut butter with no added sugar, stabilisers, preservatives and hydrogenated oils — is also available at Faithful to Nature and Takealot. It is not yet known if the Eden butters are sold by any other retailers.

On Eden’s Facebook page, it has issued a product recall notice dated 2 February, saying: “We have identified an issue with a smooth and crunchy 500g peanut butter, which may pose potential risks to users. To ensure your wellbeing, we are initiating a recall for all Eden All Natural units sold between 6 December 2023 and 3 February 2024. The affected product purchases can be identified by the batch code number 4823J and 4923J. If you own one of these products we strongly advise you to stop using it immediately.”

In a media statement, PnP said the health and safety of its customers was its priority, so customers who bought these affected peanut butter products should return them to Pick n Pay for a full refund. The retailer said if customers had any concerns about potentially affected peanut butters, they were welcome to return these products whether or not they fell within this expiry date, or whether products had been opened or not.

It said it had found during standard in-house testing that these three products had higher-than-allowed levels of aflatoxin, which might constitute a health risk. 

“Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring mycotoxin, but the levels we detected were higher than the regulatory threshold.” 

Aflatoxin presents a real risk to health, but poisoning depends on the dose. Food and allergy specialist Dr Harris Steinman told Daily Maverick that aflatoxin is a high-risk toxin but needs long exposure. Disease also only occurs after about 20 years of significant consumption. 

PnP has already alerted the National Consumer Commission and the national Department of Health’s Directorate of Food Control.

“We’re asking our customers to please check their pantries and food cupboards and make sure to return the products concerned to any Pick n Pay store for a full refund.

“If you have any other queries, customers can call our Customer Care Line on 0860 303 030,” the retailer said. DM