On May 20, 2022, the J.M. Smucker Company voluntarily recalled select Jif peanut butter products due to potential Salmonella contamination. The Ministry of Health & Wellness has commenced a thorough investigation at major supermarkets countrywide as a precautionary action as Belize imports the products in question. Where these products are identified, they will be seized, condemned and destroyed.

Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

The attached table includes a list of recalled products along with lot codes 1274425 – 2140425. Lot codes are included alongside best-if-used-by date.

Jif Jumps Off Shelves Due To Salmonella Contamination

<> If you've got a jar of Jif Peanut Butter on your shelf, you might want to think twice before eating it. That's because a certain batch of the product has been recalled by the J.M. Smucker Company due to potential salmonella contamination.

And since those jars are usually on the supermarket shelves here in Belize, public health inspectors are currently taking them off across the country. But if you want to know if you've bought one of these contaminated jars, you'll have to check the lot code.

Senior Public Health Inspector Lisa Marin told us more today via Zoom:

Lisa Marin, Senior Public Health Inspector, Food Safety
"People who ate it contracted salmonella internationally but so far we haven't received any such information of people being ill from the Jif Peanut Butter."

"Based on the press release, it's based on the lot code and the UPC number so if you see in our press release has the lot code and also the UPC number for the various type of Jim Peanut Butter so it's based on those numbers that the public health inspectors are out there at the various supermarkets doing an investigation and removing such items with those numbers off the shelf."

"The signs in the event it's from this peanut butter with this lot number and this UPC and this brand, then the signs and symptoms, you could have diarrhoea, fever, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain. In the event if it's this product of concern you have consumed."

"In the event they have a product with these lot number and the UPC number to contact the nearest public health inspector office or you can contact the Ministry of Health at 828-5257 so that we can assist you as best as possible in removing this product from the market."

The lot codes for the recalled products are between 1274425 - 2140425. A list of the recalled products can be found on the Ministry of Health's Facebook page.

Channel 7