Nearly 900,000 popular ‘immune support’ tea bags recalled due to possible pesticide contamination

By Carma Hassan, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly 900,000 tea bags from the organic tea brand Yogi are being recalled due to a detectable amount of pesticide on the product, according to an enforcement report posted on the US Food and Drug Administration’s website.

The pesticides were discovered during “routine audit procedures,” Yogi said in a statement Friday.

“While Yogi does not use pesticides, buying only to Organic Specifications that do not allow conventional pesticide use, we exist within a complex supply chain network where not everyone values organic practices in the same way that we do,” the company said. “For example, if a neighboring farm is applying pesticides or chemical fertilizers, those applications may drift onto our farmers’ organic land.”

This is a Class III recall, meaning that using the product “is not likely to cause adverse health consequences,” according to the FDA. Yogi also said the amount of pesticides found in the tea “posed no risk of harm or illness.”

The Echinacea Immune Support teabags are sold in stores across the country and were first recalled in March by parent company East West Tea. A full list of affected lot numbers is available in the report on the FDA’s site.

Yogi said it is working with stores to remove the affected boxes of tea from shelves and is following FDA guidelines.

“In addition, we are working with all ingredient vendors to ensure full compliance with our supplier expectations and testing requirements. We also have engaged new partners to add additional testing capabilities across all of our products,” Yogi said in the statement.

Consumers who have the affected products can return them to stores for a full refund.

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