Other recent food safety incidents include Winfield’s Chocolate Bar recalling products for undeclared milk allergens and cascading snack recalls from multiple brands triggered by a supplier’s contaminated milk powder.
If you bought a Spring and Mulberry chocolate bar at Whole Foods, Erewhon, or online in the past nine months, stop eating it and check the lot code on the back of the box.
On May 8, 2026, Spring and Mulberry expanded its voluntary recall for the third time this year, this time to cover all 12 of its chocolate bar flavors nationwide. The reason: a root cause investigation identified a single contaminated lot of date ingredient as the most likely source of possible Salmonella contamination. All finished bars in the expanded recall tested negative for Salmonella. No illnesses have been reported. But the company is not waiting.
This is the right call. Here is everything you need to know.
Spring and Mulberry: the full story
Spring and Mulberry is a Raleigh, North Carolina-based premium chocolate brand with a specific and genuinely compelling product philosophy: its bars are sweetened exclusively with dates. No refined sugar. Just cacao, dates, and whatever fruits, florals, nuts, or spices go into each flavor. The brand launched in 2022, tripled revenue year over year, and by September 2024 had landed on shelves at over 145 Whole Foods Market locations across the North Atlantic, Northeast, and Southern regions. Erewhon, Lunds and Byerlys, Bloomingdales, and CAP Beauty also stock or have stocked it. At $9.99 a bar, it is the kind of product that health-conscious shoppers buy because they trust it.
That trust is exactly what makes this recall story complicated.
How the recall unfolded
January 12, 2026. Spring and Mulberry issues its first voluntary recall, covering one lot of Mint Leaf chocolate bars after routine third-party testing by its contract manufacturer returned a positive Salmonella result in a finished product. One flavor. One lot. Addressed quickly.
January 14, 2026. Two days later, the recall expands to eight flavors: Earl Grey, Lavender Rose, Mango Chili, Mixed Berry, Mulberry Fennel, Pecan Date, Pure Dark Minis, and the original Mint Leaf. The reasoning is standard food safety protocol: if equipment or production timing overlaps with a positive test result, everything produced in that window gets pulled. The expanded recall covers products sold online and through retail partners since September 15, 2025.
May 8, 2026. The recall expands again, this time to all 12 flavors. The four additions are Blood Orange, Coffee, Pure Dark, and Sea Salt. This expansion follows a comprehensive root cause investigation by the company’s manufacturing partners, food safety experts, and the FDA. The investigation identified a single lot of date ingredient as the most likely contamination source. Every finished product made with that ingredient lot is now recalled, regardless of whether it tested positive or negative individually.
Why the date ingredient matters
Spring and Mulberry’s entire product identity is built on dates. They are the sweetener. They are in every bar. When the root cause investigation traced the most likely Salmonella pathway back to a single ingredient lot of dates, the recall had to cover everything made with that lot. There was no way to contain it to a subset of flavors.
Dates are a low-moisture whole food ingredient, a product category that the food safety community has flagged for Salmonella risk. Low moisture does not mean low risk. Salmonella survives extremely well in low-moisture environments, including dried fruits, nuts, and spices. It is precisely why brands using these ingredients need validated kill steps or robust incoming ingredient testing protocols.
What to check right now
The recalled products cover specific lot codes only. Not every Spring and Mulberry bar you have ever purchased is affected. Check the lot code printed on the back of the packaging and on the inner flow wrap.
Flavor | Box color | UPC | Recalled lot codes |
|---|---|---|---|
Blood Orange | Orange | 850055470200 | 025217, 025289, 025325 |
Coffee | Light brown | 850055470224 | 025226, 025274, 025344 |
Earl Grey | Purple | 850055470231 | 025346 |
Lavender Rose | Light blue | 850055470019 | 025204, 025205, 025212, 025216, 026037, 026040 |
Mango Chili | Orange | 850055470033 | 025245, 025322, 025328 |
Mint Leaf | Green | 850055470217 | 025225, 025272, 025342, 025364 |
Mixed Berry | Purple | 850055470026 | 025220, 025223, 025247, 025248, 025251, 025253, 025288, 025296, 025335, 026008 |
Mulberry Fennel | Burgundy | 850055470149 | 025230, 025287 |
Pecan Date | Yellow | 850055470132 | 025233, 025237, 025238, 025239, 025240, 025241, 025290, 025294, 025329, 025330 |
Pure Dark | Navy blue | 850055470064 | 025217, 025218, 025219, 025254, 025266, 025269, 025324, 025338, 025350 |
Pure Dark Minis | Navy blue | 850055470156 | 025302, 025303, 026009, 026013, 026014 |
Sea Salt | Check springandmulberry.com/pages/recall | Check springandmulberry.com/pages/recall | Check springandmulberry.com/pages/recall |
For the complete and most current lot code list, visit springandmulberry.com/pages/recall.
What to do
Stop consuming any Spring and Mulberry product whose lot code appears in the table above. Photograph the packaging showing the batch code. Email the photo to [email protected] for a full refund. Dispose of the product after documenting it. Customer service is available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time.
While we are on the subject: two more recalls you should know about this week
Spring and Mulberry is the biggest food recall story of the week. But two others landed in the same news cycle that are worth knowing about, especially if you shop at Giant Eagle or bought artisan chocolate in Houston.
One missing word in a Houston chocolate shop
Winfield’s Chocolate Bar, a Houston artisan chocolatier with three storefronts in Rice Village, River Oaks, and the Galleria/Tanglewood area, recalled five novelty-shaped dark chocolate products on May 5, 2026, after discovering that one word was accidentally left off the ingredient label: milk.
Five shapes are affected: a cowboy, a cat, a teddy bear, a champagne bottle, and an Easter bunny, all sold in clear cello bags. The products were sold exclusively at the three Houston locations and were not distributed to outside retailers. The company confirmed all products were pulled from shelves and relabeled by April 27, 2026. No illnesses have been reported.
The scope is limited. The principle is not. Milk is one of the nine major allergens the FDA requires on every label, no exceptions. For a milk-allergic consumer who bought what appeared to be a dairy-free dark chocolate novelty, that single missing word was the entire margin of safety they had.
If you have a milk allergy and purchased any of these shapes from a Winfield’s Houston location, do not consume the product. Return it or discard it. Contact Alan Underwood at 281-667-9411 ext. 702 or [email protected].
A supply chain cascade that hit two snack brands in one week
The Legacy Snack Solutions recall of Giant Eagle Baked Pita Chips with Parmesan, Garlic and Herb (7.33 oz, best-by date 07/16/26, UPC 0 3003496507 5) announced May 7, 2026, tells a more systemic story.
Earlier this week, John B. Sanfilippo and Son recalled eight snack mix products across the Fisher, Southern Style Nuts, Squirrel Brand, and Good and Gather brands over potential Salmonella risk. Both recalls trace to the same upstream event: California Dairies, Inc. recalled dry milk powder. That recalled powder went to a third-party seasoning manufacturer. That manufacturer supplied seasoning to both Sanfilippo and Legacy Snack Solutions. Both companies used the seasoning in finished products before learning their seasoning supplier was using recalled milk powder as an ingredient.
Both companies tested their seasoning batches before use. Both came back negative for Salmonella. Both recalled anyway. That is the correct response.
The Giant Eagle pita chips were sold exclusively at Giant Eagle and Market District locations across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, and Indiana. If your bag carries best-by date 07/16/26, stop consuming it, photograph the barcode and date, dispose of the product, and call 1-800-532-6120 (24/7) or return to the store for a refund.
Why it matters for supply chains
Three recalls. Three different failure modes. One week.
Spring and Mulberry traced Salmonella risk to a date ingredient, a natural, minimally processed product that most consumers would assume is inherently safe. The investigation took months and three recall expansions to trace fully. That is not a failure of the company’s transparency. It is a reflection of how difficult ingredient-level contamination tracing actually is.
Winfield’s illustrates a simpler but no less serious problem: a single word missing from a label. A five-store Houston artisan chocolatier and a national brand like Frito-Lay can both produce an undeclared allergen recall. The failure mode is identical. The scale is different. The consumer risk is the same.
The California Dairies cascade shows something structurally important. When a commodity supplier at the base of the food supply chain issues a recall, the downstream effects are not predictable in advance. A seasoning manufacturer. Two unrelated snack brands. Five states and nationwide distribution, both from the same upstream milk powder batch. Manufacturers at the end of that chain depend on supplier notification to know their risk exists at all.
The brands that respond best are the ones that know their supply chain two and three steps upstream and have protocols in place to act quickly when something changes.
At Source86, we help food brands manage ingredient sourcing, FSQA oversight, and private label production with the transparency and traceability that recalls like these make clear are not optional. Talk to our team about building a supply chain that is ready when it matters most.
