Walmart is pulling some of its Great Value frozen shrimp after federal regulators warned the product could be contaminated with a radioactive material.
The recall covers raw frozen shrimp sold at Walmart stores in Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia.
The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it detected trace levels of Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope, in a single shipment of raw frozen shrimp from Indonesian supplier PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati. That shipment never made it onto U.S. store shelves, but the FDA still recommended a recall “out of an abundance of caution.”
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The recalled products are:
- Great Value raw frozen shrimp, lot code 8005540-1, best by 3/15/2027
- Great Value raw frozen shrimp, lot code 8005538-1, best by 3/15/2027
- Great Value raw frozen shrimp, lot code 8005539-1, best by 3/15/2027
Walmart says anyone who bought these lots should not eat the shrimp and should throw it away. Customers can return it to the store for a full refund.
Distributors and retailers are being told to pull the product from shelves and destroy it.
“The health and safety of our customers is always a top priority,” a Walmart spokesperson said. “We have issued a sales restriction and removed this product from our impacted stores. We are working with the supplier to investigate.”
What’s the risk?
Cesium-137 is a byproduct of nuclear fission, used in some medical devices and created in nuclear reactors and weapons testing. The FDA said the levels detected, about 68 becquerels per kilogram, are well below its 1,200 Bq/kg threshold for imported foods. That means there’s no immediate danger to consumers.
Still, regulators warn that repeated low-dose exposure to Cesium-137 can damage DNA over time and increase cancer risk. Their recommendation: avoid any product tied to contaminated shipments to limit long-term exposure.
“Although testing to date has not confirmed the presence of contamination in any product in commerce, the product appears to have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with Cs-137 and may pose a safety concern,” the FDA said.
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