General Mills Inc. has recalled 1.8 million boxes of gluten-free Cheerios because they accidentally contained wheat flour, a major gaffe as the packaged food giant is counting on the new, wheatless Cheerios to rejuvenate sagging cereal sales.
The voluntary recall on Monday includes four days of production of Cheerios and 13 days of production of Honey Nut Cheerios, both made at the company's Lodi, Calif., cereal plant during July.
"I am embarrassed and truly sorry to announce today that we are recalling boxes of Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios," Jim Murphy, the head of General Mills' U.S. cereal business, wrote on a company blog. "In an isolated incident involving purely human error, wheat flour was inadvertently introduced into our gluten-free oat flour system in Lodi."
General Mills began investigating its production system there after becoming "aware of illness complaints from gluten intolerant consumers," the company said in an e-mail. "Two complaints of illness have been reported directly to General Mills related to the affected products."
General Mills said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration also became aware of illness complaints. The FDA on Monday did not have an immediate response.
People with celiac disease cannot eat gluten, a protein in wheat. Celiac sufferers make up about 1 percent of the population, though about 7 percent — while not diagnosed with celiac — have digestive systems that are intolerant of gluten.
The recall of Cheerios labeled "gluten-free" is what's known as a "Class I" recall, meaning there is reasonable probability that it will cause serious health consequences.
Even though Cheerios are made primarily of oats, which naturally contain no gluten, the cereal manufacturing process can still let through small amounts of gluten. The foul-up in Lodi, Calif., occurred when the plant lost rail service and its gluten-free flour was transferred from rail cars to trucks, General Mills said in a news release.