Brand recalls frozen hash browns contaminated with golf ball bits

Breakfast with a side of hash browns sounds delicious. Hash browns with a side of “extraneous golf ball materials” does not.

McCain Foods has issued a voluntary recall on 2 lb. bags of Roundy’s and Harris Teeter brand Frozen Southern Style Hash Browns. While recall and health risk are necessary news, McCain Foods is also making headlines for the rather unique reason. This particularly batch of hash browns contains “extraneous golf ball materials” that may “pose a choking hazard or other physical injury to the mouth.”

According to the FDA recall announcement, Mariano’s, Metro Market and Pick ‘n Save supermarkets stock Roundy’s products in Illinois and Wisconsin. The Harris Teeter products were distributed to stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia and Maryland.

If you’ve bought a 2 lb. bag of Roundy’s or Harris Teeter frozen hash browns recently, you’ll want to check the back of the packaging for the production code. If it’s B170119, that means you may have golf ball bits in your ‘browns. In which case, toss them out or return them to your store.

How, one might wonder, do “extraneous golf ball materials” end up in frozen breakfast delicacies? The working theory put forth by McCain foods is that “despite stringent supply standards” they were “inadvertently harvested” with the potatoes. A follow-up question might be, how do golf balls even end up near, let alone in, potato fields?

As it turns out, it’s not so unusual. Atlas Obscura reports that “golf ball contamination is a known danger of potato agriculture.” Mostly because golfing is popular in Idaho.

In 2002, the University of Idaho created a guide on “Managing Foreign Material for Quality Idaho Potatoes” in which golf balls were featured as a “common foreign material found in potatoes,” alongside bones, light bulbs, manure, shot gun shells and irrigation equipment.

The complete list – light bulbs, bones – is arguably more off-putting than golf balls alone, but in any case, makes you wonder about what could be in other pre-prepared potatoes.

The news comes from McCain Foods, and it does not appear that anyone has posted or shared photos of the golf ball bits to social media yet. McCain Foods also reports that no one has been injured.