Ajinomoto Foods North America has expanded its frozen food recall to nearly 37 million pounds across 5 brands, including Trader Joe’s, after reports of glass found in products.
If your freezer holds any frozen fried rice, ramen, or dumplings from a handful of well-known brands, it is worth pausing before dinner tonight.
Ajinomoto Foods North America, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, has expanded a frozen food recall to nearly 37 million pounds of product after receiving multiple consumer complaints about glass found in their meals. The expansion, announced March 3, builds on an initial recall the company issued in February and now covers 16 not-ready-to-eat products containing both chicken and pork. As of the most recent update, no injuries tied to the recalled products had been reported.
Which 5 brands are affected
The reach of this recall extends well beyond Ajinomoto’s own label. The affected products are sold under 5 brand names, which means shoppers who have never heard of Ajinomoto may still have a recalled item sitting in their freezer right now. The 5 brands involved are:
- Ajinomoto
- Kroger (Fred Meyer)
- Ling Ling
- Tai Pei
- Trader Joe’s
The product types covered across these brands include frozen chicken fried rice, pork fried rice, chicken ramen, shumai dumplings, and similar frozen meal items. The recalled products were distributed to retail stores nationwide, and some Ajinomoto-branded items were also exported to Canada and Mexico.
How to identify a recalled product
The most reliable way to check your freezer is not by brand name alone, because the same underlying product can appear under multiple labels. There are two specific details to look for on the packaging.
The first is the best-by date. Affected products carry best-by dates ranging from February 28, 2026, through August 19, 2027, a window wide enough that items still well within their use-by date are included in the recall.
The second is the establishment number, which appears inside the USDA inspection mark printed on the packaging. The three establishment numbers tied to the recall are P-18356, P-18356B, and P-47971. If a package in your freezer matches both the date range and any of these establishment numbers, it is part of the recall.
Where the glass came from
The contamination was traced back to a vegetable ingredient used during production. An investigation by the company determined that carrots, used as a component in the affected products, were the likely source of the glass. The nature of that kind of contamination is what makes it particularly difficult for consumers to detect on their own. Glass embedded in a frozen product does not change how the meal looks, smells, or cooks. There is no visible sign at home that anything is wrong until someone encounters it while eating.
That is why the recall guidance is firm: do not eat the product and do not try to inspect it yourself. The recommended action is either to throw out any affected items immediately or to return them to the store where they were purchased for a refund or replacement.
The scale of the recall and what it means for shoppers
The total weight of recalled product now stands at 36,987,575 pounds. That figure reflects an initial removal of just over 3.3 million pounds followed by an expansion of an additional 33.6 million pounds, a jump that illustrates how quickly a contamination issue tied to a single ingredient can grow once investigators begin tracing it across a production run.
For shoppers, the practical implication is straightforward: check the freezer, check the label, and act on what you find. With best-by dates running as far out as August 2027, there is no safe assumption that a product purchased recently is outside the recall window. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service issued the recall notice in connection with the expansion and continues to monitor the situation as the company and regulators work through the full scope of the affected inventory.