Tony Chachere's chicken and sausage gumbo may be shrimp gumbo

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) _ A Lake Charles company which makes frozen gumbo for Tony Chachere's Creole Foods is recalling 17,940 12-ounce servings of chicken and sausage gumbo because it may actually

Wednesday, June 22nd 2005, 2:22 pm

By: News On 6

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) _ A Lake Charles company which makes frozen gumbo for Tony Chachere's Creole Foods is recalling 17,940 12-ounce servings of chicken and sausage gumbo because it may actually be shrimp gumbo.

Some people are violently allergic to shrimp. Since the gumbo was sent out in chicken and sausage gumbo boxes, the labels didn't list shrimp as an ingredient.

Two customers reported getting shrimp gumbo in chicken-and-sausage boxes, and neither had been made ill, said Mark Abraham, president of Abe's Cajun Boudin Inc.

But to make sure nobody allergic to shrimp gets the gumbo, Abe's is recalling all of the chicken-and-sausage gumbo it made with a tuck-in flap box between June 22, 2004 and March 31, 2005.

He didn't know how the mistakae occurred. Mislabeling apparently is fairly common in the food industry, he said, ``but that's no excuse for us.''

The 13,455 pounds of gumbo were made on nine days during that period. ``We probably made it once a month,'' Abraham said.

``It's not like the whole production all those nine days had the box swap. We really don't know which one it was,'' he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it hadn't received any reports of illness or allergic reactions from people who ate the gumbo.

The affected products are 9-pound cases and 12-ounce packages labeled ``Tony Chachere's Creole Style, Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, Single Serving.'' Each package bears the code, ``P-13251'' inside the USDA inspection mark, according to a USDA news release.

Packages with a glued flap closure are not subject to recall. The packages in question were distributed to retail stores in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

According to the National Institutes of health, about 2 percent of all adults and 6 to 8 percent of all children are allergic to at least one food.