The Bizarre Reason Golf Balls Once Led To A Hash Brown Recall In The US

As the late great David Lynch once observed, "What a great time to be alive if you love the theater of the absurd." Many of the worst food recalls in U.S. history have been caused by the usual culprits: Bacterial contamination or undeclared allergens. However, one of the oddest food recalls to ever slide across the FDA's desk was caused not by Listeria, Salmonella, or undisclosed peanuts, but by a golf ball.

In 2017, McCain Foods USA, Inc. announced a recall of its southern-style frozen hash browns because they could possibly be contaminated with pieces of golf balls (yes, really). As a result, the FDA had to shout "Fore!" at consumers. According to the official FDA announcement, consumption of the extraneous golf ball materials "may pose a choking hazard or other physical injury to the mouth." Although (happily), no injuries were formally reported in connection with the affected product, per the FDA report. The report stated only that the golf balls "may have been inadvertently harvested with potatoes used to make this product," — which leaves it unclear as to how the golf balls ended up in potato fields in the first place. Whatever the case, by some bizarre turn of events, a few projectiles (or a lot? The FDA release doesn't specify exactly how many balls were in the mix) got swept into McCain Foods' spud harvest. Hope you like breakfast with a side of chopped-up golf balls. 

Online commenters speculate that someone may have been using McCain's potato field as a driving range — or, alternatively, that there might have been a legitimate range next door. A Redditor in a thread in r/golf dedicated to the debacle posits, "It's because people whack balls into potato fields all the time, and the similarities don't allow the harvesting machines to grade them out easily. Usually, they are picked out by hand, but if it's super muddy, it's like impossible. They likely found them in the plant after washing potatoes." Indeed, the sprawl of McCain's potato field was ostensibly no small operation. McCain Foods is an international manufacturing giant with eight production facilities in the U.S. alone (at the time of the 2017 recall). Another Redditor cleverly chimed in, "Was the brand... Fore-ida?" while a third commentor quipped,  "I didn't think I hit that ball that far off line." 

This isn't the first time that bits of foreign materials have ended up in commercially-produced foodstuffs and spurred subsequent mass recalls. Entenmann's pastries have been pulled from shelves for containing bits of plastic, and Creamy Creations Caramel Pecan Turtle Ice Cream was once pulled for packing wood chips (yum). So far in 2026 alone, the FDA has issued more than 70 food recalls, market withdrawals, and safety alerts due to threats to consumer safety. But, as long as sportsmen keep an eye on their golf balls, hopefully, the number of obscure projectile-related incidents will remain low.