Wise Wife Ground Cinnamon Recall Hits 14 States Over Lead Levels

A familiar spice, a familiar problem

Right before the busiest baking weeks of the year, another ground cinnamon has been pulled from U.S. shelves over lead. SLR Food Distribution Inc. of Hicksville, New York, is voluntarily recalling Wise Wife Brand Ground Cinnamon because the product may contain elevated levels of lead.9 The FDA posted the recall on its public listing dated October 29, 2026. The listing names the brand, the product, the spice category and the reason, which is potential contamination with elevated lead.11

The distribution area is wide. The cinnamon went to retail and grocery stores in Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin between September 8, 2025, and June 28, 2026.1 That means a container bought months ago could still be in a pantry and get used in pies, cookies and spiced drinks this season.

Shoppers can identify the recalled product this way:

• 110-gram (3.88-ounce) clear plastic container with a black screw-top cap
• Best-before date of April 25, 2027
• UPC 0688474302754 printed on the back label1

The company says not to eat it. Throw it away or return it to the store for a full refund.2 Customers with questions can call SLR Food Distribution at 516-437-3782 or email slrusaorder@gmail.com.20

How the contamination was caught

Federal sampling did not find this problem. A state lab did. The recall started after the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station collected and tested a sample that showed elevated lead.9 SLR says it is telling its customers to stop distributing and selling the product and to take it off shelves.16

No illnesses have been reported. Every major outlet that covered the recall says so.1220 The FDA's health language explains why that is only partly reassuring. A short exposure to very low levels of lead may cause no symptoms. A rise in blood lead may be the only sign. Clearer symptoms are more likely with large acute exposures or long-term ones.9 The recall notice also warns that a child exposed to enough lead over weeks to months can suffer permanent damage to the central nervous system, which can lead to learning disorders and developmental defects.9

Coverage of this recall is very consistent. Gray Media stations, Nexstar stations, USA Today and Martha Stewart all report the same 14 states, the same UPC and the same dates.29201 Much of the local TV coverage was syndicated word for word, so the consistency mostly reflects one recall notice repeated in many places. USA Today added detail from the CDC: a short burst of high lead exposure can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and memory loss.20

Not Wise Wife's first cinnamon recall

The holiday headlines mostly miss one point: this brand has been flagged before. In October 2025, the FDA added Wise Wife ground cinnamon to its ongoing public health alert on lead in cinnamon, along with the Durra brand. That earlier listing named the same distributor, SLR Food Distribution. It covered a different UPC (0 688474 302853), sold to retailers in New Jersey, New York, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Ohio between February 2024 and June 2025, with a measured lead level of 2.49 parts per million.

The new recall has a different UPC, a later sales window that starts in September 2025, and twice as many states.1 The available reporting does not say whether the two lots shared a supplier. Even so, the timing is striking. The first Wise Wife product was flagged in early October 2025. A month earlier, in September 2025, the company had already started shipping the product now being recalled, and it kept shipping it until late June 2026.1 Our reading is that this looks like a supply-chain problem that was never fixed at the source, not a one-off bad batch. The FDA's own list makes that pattern hard to miss.

Why cinnamon keeps showing up

The current wave of cinnamon testing goes back to fall 2023. North Carolina health officials were investigating four children with elevated blood lead levels and identified WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches as a likely shared source.33 WanaBana recalled those products in late October 2023. In November, the recall expanded to Schnucks and Weis brand pouches made by the same manufacturer.32 The FDA said the pouch sample it tested had a lead concentration of 2.18 ppm. That is more than 200 times the 0.01 ppm action level the agency had proposed for fruit purees meant for babies and young children.33

Reported case counts for the pouch episode differ depending on the source and when it was published. Early guidance from pediatricians cited at least 90 confirmed cases.35 Consumer Reports later said more than 460 children were affected.39 Fox Business said more than 400 children in 44 states.37 Several outlets cite a CDC figure of more than 560 children sickened between October 2023 and April 2024.34 These numbers mostly reflect how case-finding grew over time, not real disagreement. The larger, later figure is the better guide to how big the event was.

After the pouch recall, the FDA began testing ground cinnamon from discount retailers, and states added their own testing. In March 2024 it issued a public health alert on several brands.32 The agency told the industry that the levels it found, roughly 2 to 3.4 ppm, were thousands of ppm below the cinnamon used in the pouches. It said these products did not carry the same risk but could be unsafe if used over a long period.38 The alert has grown several times since then. By late October 2025, the FDA had named 18 cinnamon brands, and only 12 of them had issued recall announcements.36 In September 2026 it added Lior Gourmet Spices ground cinnamon, recalled by Galil Foods of Hauppauge, New York, after Maryland health officials sampled it.31 The FDA's alert lists measured lead levels from 2.03 to 7.68 ppm across the brands it covers.31

The baby-food angle

Wise Wife cinnamon is not a baby product, but the FDA links these alerts directly to young children. The agency says that although these ground cinnamons may not be marketed to young children, cinnamon goes into many foods they eat. It calls its recall recommendations part of its Closer to Zero initiative to reduce childhood lead exposure.31 Holiday baking makes that concern more concrete: cinnamon ends up in breakfast foods, baked goods and applesauce that toddlers eat in small portions relative to their body weight.

The FDA has also gone after manufacturers. It sent a warning letter to Austrofood, the Ecuadorian maker of the recalled pouches, and dated it August 9, 2024.33 One parent-focused site places that letter in early 2026.34 FDA's own records are more reliable on this point, so the 2024 date stands. Some coverage says the pouch contamination may have been intentional economic adulteration, meaning lead chromate added to improve color and weight.34 Consumer Reports also raised the possibility that the lead was added on purpose.39

Part of a wider wave of lead recalls

The cinnamon recall comes one week after a high-profile lead recall of a pantry staple. Pacific Coast Producers is recalling 44,064 cans of Great Value Fruit Cocktail in Fruit Juice from Concentrate sold at Walmart stores in seven states.27 The company started that recall on October 1. The FDA classified it as Class II on October 20, a category where serious health consequences are considered remote.22 Reports differ on who initiated it. MassLive said Walmart issued it, while most outlets name Pacific Coast Producers, the manufacturer, as the recalling firm.2529 Walmart says it pulls recalled items and blocks their sale at registers and online once it is notified.22

The two recalls also reached the public differently. The cinnamon recall appeared on the FDA's main recall page with a company announcement. The fruit cocktail recall appeared mainly in the agency's enforcement reports, where Food Poisoning Bulletin noted there is no information on whether illnesses were reported.28 For shoppers, that means some lead recalls are well publicized and others are much easier to miss.

What it means

Our reading: the Wise Wife recall is small in volume but tells us a lot. Two and a half years after the FDA started treating cinnamon as a known lead risk, contaminated product from a brand already on its list still reached grocery shelves in 14 states for about nine months. A state lab caught it, not federal screening at the border. The consumer advice is simple: check the UPC, throw the container away or return it, and talk to a pediatrician if a young child has eaten a lot of a recalled spice. The bigger lesson is about regulation. As long as the FDA relies mainly on voluntary recalls after products are already in stores, holiday baking will keep depending on luck and on state testing labs.