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Consumer recalls: What retailers are required to do

 When there are widespread safety recalls, getting the message out to consumers is critical.

However, there are actually no federal regulations requiring retailers to contact their customers about recalled products.

This means stores handle recalls differently, with some simply posting a notice in their stores or on their website.

Costco went a step further when they were alerted about a ground beef recall, phoning their customers with a recorded message explaining they should return the meat.

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Large chain stores said that’s not always a practical method, since they have too many customers to contact everyone individually.

“We would love to be able to personally contact all of our members, but we have 24 food centres and it’s literally tens of thousands of people that could have purchased the product,” explained Karen Allan, spokesperson for Co-op. “So just to dedicate the manpower to [those] kind of phone calls, we just don’t have the ability.”
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Some retailers are now using social media like Twitter and Facebook to alert consumers. Besides that, the only other method of alerting the public is through the media.

 The Canadian Food Inspection Agency regularly issues recall alerts. You can also find a list of them here.
 
Should companies have to contact customers about important product recalls?

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