Food Recalls, Clicks, and the Rise of Recall Hysteria

It’s a little bit over a week since the Food Safety Authority of Ireland reported on an outbreak of listeria which resulted in the death of one adult. In that short period of time, I’ve already begun to see media outlets scrambling to ramp up coverage of food recalls in an effort to gain the public’s attention and, more importantly for those behind these outlets, their clicks.

Background on the Irish Listeria Outbreak

Reporting on the recent outbreak of listeria began on 23rd July 2025. The initially reported outbreak which affected products from Tesco Finest, The Happy Pear, SuperValu Signature Taste, and Centra Freshly Prepared, but since additional products have also been recalled.

These recalls are not new. The FSAI website has reports going back to 2022 on food recall alerts. Listeria is a surprisingly common occurrence, with a recall occurring for Burren Smokehouse Smoked Irish Organic Salmon on 10 February 2022.

To be fair, that 2022 recall, and many since, make local news, with Dublin Live picking up that particular story. But there has been an increased interest in food safety amongst media.

Now, food safety is obviously important and anything that’s keeping people safe should be reported. But the fact that the increase has come as a result of someone’s passing tells me that there’s a risk of hysteria, which media can very much be a part of and cause of.

Historical Coverage of Food Recalls

I’ve built a tool that’s run through the FSAI website to extract food reports since 2023 between January and July. I’ve done this to see if there’s an increase in actual food recalls that aligns with my perceived increase in media interest in these stories.

Historical Number of FSAI Food Recalls

Here is the data I gathered. There are some limitations. This reports on instances of food recalls and doesn’t consider one recall involving multiple brands. However, given that the recent listeria outbreak on multiple products can be traced back to a single source, this is the best way to look at the data anyway.

Naturally, given that we are only in August, I’ve also limited this data to between January and July.

The data shows is that 2025 is 3 reports higher than 2024, but 2 fewer than 2023. My take away from this data is that despite increased coverage of food recalls, over the past three years the numbers haven’t moved by much.

Media Coverage of FSAI Food Recalls

Despite the actual food recall numbers not varying much between 2023 and 2025, the number of Google News results relating to “fsai food recall” has grown over five times during that period.

To explain that in detail, this is the number of results where Google has found something relating to an FSAI food recall but excluding the FSAI website itself and specifically from the Google News index, meaning it’s media coverage. Even more shocking is that this is the full year of 2023 and 2024 compared to just half of 2025.

Ultimately, this means that while the number of FSAI food recalls isn’t varying dramatically, news coverage in 2025, just up until July, has already dwarfed the previous two years. Which leads me to want to answer, “why”?.

A Changing Media Landscape

The first, and most obvious, thing to consider here is that someone died. It should never be ignored that someone has passed away from something, food safety related, that in this day and age should not happen. And that’s tragic.

This alone can cause a significant increase in news coverage. However, what I’m seeing in the media is disproportionate. It’s disproportionate and bordering on hysteria. The giveaway for me is that other FSAI recalls are now getting coverage when they normally wouldn’t.

Take that listeria recall back in 2022. It was only reported on by Dublin Live. Yet just yesterday, the Irish Mirror and another “red top” reported on a Lidl recall. Naturally, given the increased coverage of listeria food recalls, I had assumed this was another, but this just proved to me the importance of clicking and not assuming what headlines are covering.

It turns out that this recall was for something completely unrelated. This recall was due to the product containing milk and this not being listed on the label. It’s important for me to highlight here that this is a serious issue. Milk is an allergen and listening it on the product is a requirement. When missed, a recall is the correct procedure.

What I take issue with is that media haven’t reported on these recalls. Taking just one example, 3 weeks ago the FSAI recalled Bao Long Soup Seasonings, stating “batches of Bao Long Soup Seasonings contain some allergens that are not declared on the label”.

The FSAI website is the only item in Google relating to this recall.

Chasing Clicks

Truth be told, that news outlets are often shaping the story instead of telling it. They are chasing clicks, which, as a website owner, I do understand. We live in a world of information, and how we find and consume that information has changed dramatically.

Think of how many times you’ve discovered news from Twitter or TikTok. Today, even if you do get your news from Google searches, Google AI Overviews now means you might not click through to a website at all. By not clicking through to a website, your eyes are never seeing all the ads that fund that news website.

This means, a lot of media outlets have to create content that they know is irresistible to click. And when someone has just passed away from listeria, people on the news desk know that those article will drive clicks.

My question is, “at what point does media shift from telling the story, to shaping the story”. But it was clear to me that somewhere here, that shift had happened.

People Need to be More Media Savvy

That media landscape has changed a lot in recent years. What people have learned in their youth from life experience and schooling, isn’t always all that relevant any more. Because everything is moving that quickly.

Media awareness is certainly one of those areas. Social media makes information travel faster than ever, and AI is making that information both accessible but also incredibly easy to fake. Fake information doesn’t even have to be high fidelity. You don’t have to think too far back to the “fake Halloween parade” in Dublin causing havoc.

That was largely down to many people simply not being critical of the media they were consuming, and I’d argue the same occurs today when we believe there’s been a massive increase in food recalls, when in fact the increase is really just in media coverage of the same.

I want to close this out by reiterating, the FSAI recalls are important information and can protect us all. Coverage of them is equally important to ensure everyone is aware of dangerous products. For example, I’m highly critical of The Happy Pear who’s social media and website, to my knowledge, have not talked about their products being recalled. But I also don’t want to see hysteria spreading, because misinformation is bad for everyone. We need to trust news and food, but it’s up to us to be crticial too.