Costco + Sam’s Club Jerky Recall: Life-Threatening if Consumed

The USDA has announced a major recall of pork jerky sold at Sam’s Club and Costco. Officials say the product may pose a serious health risk, even potentially being life-threatening.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service reports that approximately 2 million pounds of pork jerky currently available may contain metal fragments.

It’s definitely unpleasant to bite into your favorite jerky and discover you’re chewing on metal instead.

Here’s what the jerky product impacted by the recall looks like:

Okay, so I recently tried Golden Island Korean BBQ Pork Jerky, made by LSI, Inc. It’s a really interesting product – you could only find it at Costco and Sam’s Club stores nationwide, and it came in either 14.5 or 16-ounce bags. It’s a pretty limited distribution, which is something to note.

Because there are so many lot numbers and codes on the recalled jerky, it’s easiest to check the full list online to see if your bag is affected.

To give you an idea of just how much jerky we’re dealing with, imagine a standard 10-ton dump truck – the kind you see driving around every day. It would take about 100 trips with that truck to move all 2,277,540 pounds of Korean barbecue pork jerky! It’s a massive amount, and really puts things into perspective.

If you have any of the recalled jerky, please don’t eat it. The recall is considered high-risk – meaning it could cause serious health problems or even death – and no jerky is worth risking your health for.

If you’re not happy with the jerky, return it to Sam’s Club or Costco for a complete refund. Just please don’t use the refund to buy more of the same jerky! Otherwise, you should be all set.

How Many Costcos Are in the U.S.?

There are 634 Costco locations strewn across America, according to Scrape Hero.

How Many Sam’s Clubs Are in the U.S.?

With around 600 stores across the United States, Sam’s Club is comparable to Costco in size, as reported by Scrape Hero.

’80s Foods We Wish They Still Made

Bonkers

Bonkers was a popular, chewy fruit candy throughout the 1980s, famous for its bizarre commercials. These ads featured a woman with glasses correcting common misunderstandings about the candy (like whether it was gum!) while large fruits rained down on her family. Despite its popularity throughout the decade, Bonkers quickly lost customers and production stopped after just a few years. The candy came in flavors like grape and strawberry, but watermelon was the best – its green and red layers matched the candy’s two-tone design.

C-3PO’s

If you grew up with the original Star Wars movies, you probably remember this cereal! C-3POs cereal came out with Return of the Jedi in the mid-1980s and was quite popular. The cereal itself wasn’t anything special – it was just a basic oat, wheat, and corn mix – but the boxes were a big hit. Kids loved collecting the character masks on the back, wearing them as costumes and often leaving the cereal uneaten in the pantry for months!

Disney Pops

Mickey Mouse ice cream bars are a timeless favorite at Disney Parks and in stores everywhere. But back in the 1980s, you could also find Disney-themed popsicles! These fruit-flavored treats came in grape, cherry, and orange, and were shaped like Mickey, Donald, or Goofy. It’s a mystery why they stopped making them – people still love both Disney characters and popsicles! I wish I could have a grape-flavored Donald Duck popsicle right now.

Ecto Cooler

Ecto Cooler is a standout in the world of movie-themed foods. This bright green, citrus-flavored drink first appeared in the late 1980s alongside the popular Ghostbusters cartoon. Even after the cartoon and Ghostbusters movies ended, Hi-C continued making Ecto Cooler until the early 2000s. It’s made several comebacks since then, released for a limited time with new Ghostbusters films. The demand is so strong that when it’s available, people often resell bottles for surprisingly high prices – sometimes for dozens, even hundreds of dollars! That’s a little spooky, isn’t it?

Five Alive

If you liked citrusy drinks but weren’t a fan of Hi-C’s Ghostbusters promotion, Five Alive was another option. The name came from the five different juices it contained: orange, grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, and lime. Five Alive was taken off the market in the US in the 1990s, but you can still find it in Canada. If you happen to be traveling there, I’d really appreciate it if you could bring me back a carton – I’m craving one!

Fruit Corners Fruit Bars

When Fruit Roll-Ups became popular in the early 1980s, it kicked off a huge trend for fruit snacks throughout the decade. Fruit Corners, the company that made Roll-Ups, and other brands all rushed to profit from this new market for treats marketed as healthy for kids. (After all, it had ‘fruit’ in the name – how unhealthy could it be?).

Having grown up during this time and tried them all, I think Fruit Corners Fruit Bars were the best. They took the idea of a Roll-Up and made it in the shape of a granola bar. The original flavors were strawberry, cherry, grape, and orange-pineapple. I’ve been searching for something that tastes like those cherry Fruit Bars for years, and I’m serious! (The That’s It Apple and Cherry bars you can find in stores now are actually pretty close.)

Fruit Wrinkles

Fruit Wrinkles were a fruit snack similar to Roll-Ups and Fruit Bars, but shaped more like jelly beans. Ads for Fruit Wrinkles highlighted that they had more fruit and less sugar than other snacks. However, as fruit snacks started coming in more elaborate shapes based on popular kids’ movies and shows, simple snacks like Fruit Wrinkles lost their appeal and were eventually discontinued.

Giggles

Oreos dominate the sandwich cookie market today, taking up a huge amount of shelf space with countless flavors—the Sour Patch Kids Oreo was a bit much, honestly. But things were different in the 1980s. Giggles cookies were a major competitor; they were similar to Oreos but had both chocolate and vanilla creme filling, and a smiley face on top in either vanilla or chocolate. Considering Oreos releases around 60 new flavors every week, it’s surprising they haven’t tried a vanilla and chocolate combination – it’s a really good idea!

Hostess Pudding Pies

Hostess is still a major snack brand, famous for treats like Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Ho Hos. While you can still find their fruit pies, their classic pudding pies from the 1980s – which came in vanilla and chocolate flavors – are no longer made. One reason for the pudding pies’ disappearance was likely their high fat and unhealthy ingredients. Even today’s apple pies aren’t particularly healthy; Hostess states that a single cherry pie contains eight grams of saturated fat and 25 grams of added sugar – half of your daily recommended intake. But let’s be honest, they tasted amazing, so maybe health wasn’t the biggest concern!

Jell-O Pudding Pops

Pudding was incredibly popular in the 1980s – it seemed like people couldn’t get enough of it! Beyond traditional cups and pies, you could even find pudding in popsicle form. Jell-O heavily promoted their Pudding Pops, with flavors like vanilla, chocolate, and swirl, and memorable commercials starring Bill Cosby. (Those commercials still hold up today!) Jell-O reportedly sold $100 million worth of Pudding Pops in just one year, but eventually, interest waned and the product was discontinued.

Kudos

Do you remember Kudos bars? They were incredibly popular in the 1980s, originally available in flavors like Chocolate Chip, Nutty Fudge, and Peanut Butter. Made by Mars, they were a unique treat – healthier than a candy bar, but more indulgent than typical granola bars. They tasted great and stayed in production for several decades, until they were eventually discontinued in the 2010s.

Mr. T Cereal

Mr. T was a huge pop culture icon in the mid-1980s, thanks to his roles in Rocky III and The A-Team, and his distinctive style – a mohawk, denim, and lots of gold chains. His popularity with kids led to a strange animated TV show where he played a gymnastics coach who also solved mysteries. From 1984 to 1993, Mr. T’s face was on boxes of a popular Quaker cereal shaped like the letter ‘T’, made from corn and oats. The cereal even made a cameo in the opening scene of Tim Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, further boosting its fame.

O’Grady’s Chips

O’Grady’s was a victim of the competitive potato chip market in the 1980s. They marketed themselves as having thicker-cut chips with a bolder cheese flavor. Fans especially loved their Au Gratin flavor, claiming it was much better and cheesier than anything available now.

Peanut Butter Boppers

One Reddit user perfectly described why people loved Boppers: “They were like a granola bar, but with all the best parts and none of the grainy texture.” As a peanut butter lover, they really miss them! And many others agree – these crunchy, peanut butter-filled bars need to make a comeback. Luckily, Nature Valley, the original maker, actually shares a recipe on their website if you’re feeling ambitious and want to try making them yourself.

Product 19

Product 19, easily recognized by its red box and mysterious name (thought to be a reference to it being the 19th recipe Kellogg’s tested), was a popular cereal throughout the 1980s and 90s. Kellogg’s famously marketed it in the 80s by claiming it was incredibly nutritious, despite not tasting like it. While people once might have chosen cereal for health reasons, that trend has faded, and Product 19 was discontinued in 2016.

Quackers

For generations, kids have loved the satisfying crunch and cheesy flavor of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers. In the 1980s, Nabisco attempted to challenge Goldfish with a similar snack called Quackers, which were shaped like ducks and had a comparable cheese taste (a sour cream and onion flavor was also surprisingly tasty!). However, Quackers disappeared by the end of the decade, leaving Goldfish as the dominant snack once again.

Slice

Pepsi frequently launches new lemon-lime sodas to challenge Sprite and other competitors. Currently, they sell Starry, but previously offered Sierra Mist and Slice (which replaced Teem). Slice even expanded to include flavors like Mandarin Orange and Apple – honestly, we could use more apple-flavored sodas! When Slice first came out, Pepsi heavily promoted its 10% fruit juice content, positioning it as a more natural option. This worked for a while, but the formula later changed, and much of the juice was removed. Slice continued through the 1990s with different packaging and advertising before being replaced by Sierra Mist in the early 2000s.

Sunkist Fun Fruits

Still reminiscing about old fruit snacks? Here’s another one! Sunkist Fun Fruits were similar in size and shape to Wrinkles, and came in cherry, orange, strawberry, and grape flavors. Interestingly, despite the Sunkist name, they were actually made by Leaf Confections, who simply licensed the Sunkist brand to make them seem more authentically fruity. (Today’s Sunkist Fruit Snacks are made by General Mills.)

Tato Skins

Lots of potato chip brands exist, but back in the 1980s, Keebler made a unique one called Tato Skins. These chips were made from whole potatoes, including the skin, giving them a taste similar to a baked potato. They came in flavors like Original, Sour Cream & Chives, Cheddar & Bacon, and Bar-B-Que. While you can find a similar snack today—called TGI Fridays Potato Skins Snacks—fans of the original Tato Skins insist nothing compares to the classic version.

WWF Superstars of Wrestling Bars

During the 1980s, when wrestling was incredibly popular thanks to stars like Hulk Hogan, WWF Superstars Ice Cream Bars were created to appeal to young fans. These treats were vanilla ice cream between cookies with a chocolate layer, and each bar featured a different WWF wrestler like “Macho Man” Randy Savage or Ted DiBiase. Though designed to take advantage of wrestling’s peak on Saturday morning television, the ice cream bars were actually quite delicious and continued to be made even after wrestling’s popularity declined in the early 1990s. Nostalgia for the original bars led to a brief revival in 2020 with “WWE Super Stars” from Good Humor, featuring modern wrestlers like John Cena and Roman Reigns on vanilla ice cream sandwiches. While tasty, these new bars weren’t as successful or long-lasting as the original WWF ones.

2025-10-29 22:00