Frozen vegetables are supposed to be the easy win. You grab a bag from the freezer aisle, toss it in a pan or microwave, and feel like a functioning adult who eats something green. But here’s the thing nobody really talks about: the frozen vegetable industry has had a genuinely alarming track record over the past decade. We’re talking contaminated products on shelves for years before recalls, brands that quietly pulled products without telling anyone, and bacteria that killed people. Three people, in one outbreak alone.
So let’s talk about which brands have earned the worst reputations when it comes to safety — ranked from bad to absolute worst.
Endico Potatoes Inc.
Endico is a smaller name that most people outside the East Coast haven’t heard of. But in September 2025, the company recalled bags of its frozen Peas and Carrots and Mixed Vegetables after sample testing at one of their distributors found Listeria monocytogenes on the finished products. The affected items were clear 2.5-pound bags with specific lot codes and best-by dates stretching to mid-2027, meaning these bags could sit in someone’s freezer for a long time before anyone realized there was a problem.
The recalled products were sold in six states plus Washington, D.C., between July 18 and August 4, 2025. No illnesses were reported, which is the one bright spot. But the fact that listeria was found on finished products — not raw ingredients, not somewhere in the supply chain, but on what you’d actually bring home and eat — is not reassuring. Endico stopped distributing the affected products while the FDA investigated, but if you bought frozen peas and carrots from them in that window, you’d have had no idea unless you were tracking FDA recall notices like a hobby.
Sno Pac Foods
Sno Pac is one of those brands that gets shelved next to the organic options at natural food stores and co-ops. People buy it because they’re trying to do the right thing — organic, wholesome, all that. In October 2025, Sno Pac recalled its organic frozen cut spinach (and Del Mar brand spinach packed from the same supply) because a bulk case of spinach from their supplier tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes. The lot code matched what was used to repack Sno Pac’s 10-ounce retail packages.
The recalled spinach was distributed to retail stores across the entire country. No illnesses were reported, and Sno Pac suspended production while investigating. Retailers like Foodtown, Lincoln Market, HarvesTime Foods, and Midamar carry the product, and general distributors include big names like Azure Standard, Kehe, and UNFI. The company told reporters that no product had been returned by consumers, but withdrawal from store shelves was underway. That gap — between a nationwide recall and consumers actually finding out about it — is where people get sick.
Store Brands: Kroger, Food Lion, and Safeway (Signature Select)
In August 2023, multiple major retailers pulled their store-brand frozen vegetables from shelves because of potential listeria contamination. This included Kroger Mixed Vegetables and Super Sweet Corn (in 32- and 12-ounce packages), Food Lion Mixed Vegetables and Super Sweet Cut Yellow Corn (in 32-, 16-, and 12-ounce packages), and Safeway’s Signature Select Golden Corn Super Sweet in 12-ounce packages. Best-by dates ranged from February 2024 to January 2025.
No illnesses were reported from this recall, which is good. But here’s the thing about store brands: they all come from the same manufacturers. Kroger doesn’t grow corn. Food Lion doesn’t process peas. They contract it out, slap their label on it, and sell it for less. So when one store brand gets recalled, you often see the same thing happen across multiple chains because it all came from the same plant. That’s exactly what happened here. If you’re buying the cheapest frozen corn at three different grocery stores, there’s a decent chance it was all made in the same facility.
Deep Brand (Chetak Foods)
Deep is a brand that’s popular in South Asian grocery aisles and carries a range of frozen specialty vegetables. In July 2025, several Deep-brand frozen products tested positive for Salmonella, including Sprouted Mat (Moth), Sprouted Moong (Mung), Premium Select Surti Undhiu Mix, and Premium Select Singoda. By September 2025, the recall expanded to include additional frozen vegetable and fruit products manufactured on the same equipment from December 18, 2024, through August 18, 2025 — an eight-month production window.
Nearly a dozen people reported getting sick from these products, and four were hospitalized. Salmonella is no joke for kids, the elderly, or anyone with a weakened immune system. The recall covered products sold in retail stores nationwide. What’s troubling is how broad the expansion was — when a company has to recall everything made on the same equipment over the span of most of a year, that tells you this wasn’t a one-time contamination event. Something was wrong with the process.
Birds Eye
Birds Eye is the biggest name on this list, and they’ve had problems more than once. In December 2021, Conagra Brands (Birds Eye’s parent company) voluntarily recalled Birds Eye Broccoli Tots in 12-ounce packages because consumers were finding small rocks and metal fragments in the product. Two people reported dental damage. Rocks and metal. In broccoli tots. That’s the kind of thing that makes you stare at your freezer differently.
But the bigger story came in 2017, when Pinnacle Foods (which owned Birds Eye at the time) quietly recalled almost 25,000 cases of frozen Baby Sweet Peas because of a Listeria risk. Here’s the kicker: they didn’t make a public announcement. The FDA apparently didn’t think the recall met the threshold for public notification. The recall only came to light because retailers and wholesalers started posting their own notices. Pinnacle refused to provide a copy of their recall notice or answer specific questions. The recalled peas had best-by dates of July 2019, meaning they could’ve sat in someone’s freezer for nearly two years. The recall affected 21 states. And the company called it a “very limited quantity.” Twenty-five thousand cases.
CRF Frozen Foods (The Worst of All)
This is the one. In April 2016, CRF Frozen Foods recalled 47 million pounds of frozen vegetables and fruits because of possible listeria contamination. Let that number register. Forty-seven million pounds. The recall started with 11 products and within days ballooned to 358 products under 42 different brand names. That’s because CRF wasn’t just selling under its own label — it was a contract manufacturer supplying frozen produce to Kroger, Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Hy-Vee, Meijer, Piggly Wiggly, and others.
The contaminated products had been in circulation since May 2014. For nearly two years, listeria-tainted vegetables were being sold in all 50 states, Mexico, and Canada before anyone caught it. Three people died. Nine were hospitalized across four states. Epidemiologists matched the listeria strains found in sick patients with strains found in the frozen products. And then, when the CDC investigation wrapped up in July 2016, they said they couldn’t conclusively determine that CRF’s Pasco, Washington facility was even the source. Meaning the full picture might have been even worse than what was reported.
CRF is the reason this entire category got put under a microscope. From 2017 to 2021, frozen fruits and vegetables were responsible for more recalls due to listeria, norovirus, or hepatitis A than any other frozen food category, according to food safety researchers. Frozen produce has been recalled at least 20 times since that CRF disaster.
What You Should Actually Do
None of this means you should stop buying frozen vegetables. They’re affordable, they last, and when they’re not contaminated with deadly bacteria or rocks, they’re perfectly fine. But there are a few things worth knowing.
First: cook your frozen vegetables. A 2022 survey found that about 9% of people eat frozen vegetables raw — throwing them straight into smoothies or eating them without heating. Around 40% of respondents didn’t follow the cooking instructions on the package. Only about a third of people surveyed agreed that frozen vegetables could even contain harmful bacteria. Cooking kills listeria, salmonella, and E. coli. It’s the simplest thing you can do.
Second: check the FDA recall page once in a while. Companies don’t always announce recalls publicly. Birds Eye proved that. If there’s a quiet recall and you’ve got the affected product in your freezer with a best-by date two years out, you’d never know unless you looked.
Third: understand that the brand on the front of the bag often isn’t the company that made what’s inside. The 2016 CRF recall hit 42 different brand names because one facility processed all of it. Your Trader Joe’s frozen peas and your Kroger frozen peas might have come from the exact same place. Brand loyalty doesn’t protect you here. Paying attention does.
Food recalls related to listeria, salmonella, and E. coli jumped 41% from 2023 to 2024, according to a 2025 report from U.S. PIRG. Hospitalizations and deaths from contaminated food doubled over the same period. The problem isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse. The least you can do is cook your frozen broccoli and check a recall list now and then. It takes thirty seconds. It could keep you out of the hospital.
