Common flavoring recalled for salmonella contamination

The flavoring -- hydrolyzed vegetable protein -- is used in soups, sauces, hot dogs, snack foods, dressings and dips and is made by privately held Basic Food Flavors Inc of Las Vegas, Nevada.

"At this time there are no known illnesses associated with this contamination and obviously we'd like to keep it that way," FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told reporters in a teleconference."The manufacturer had many first-level consignees who obviously had individuals who had firms that they sold to who sold to the other firms," said Dr. Jeff Farrar, associate commissioner for food safety at FDA's Office of Foods."We expect this to get larger over the next several days, actually several weeks," Farrar said. Farrar said officials believe the risk to consumers is very low.

A list of the products that use this flavor are listed and updated at http://www.foodsafety.gov/

Bonnie - I hope our clients do not consume products with this flavoring because when hydrolyzing protein, monosodium glutamate (MSG) is almost always used during the process.