Check your cheese: Shredded and grated varieties are recalled nationwide

By Rachel Treisman

Published December 3, 2025 at 1:47 PM EST

Several varieties of shredded mozzarella and cheese blends, sold at retailers including Aldi, Target and Walmart, are being recalled over concerns they were contaminated with bits of metal.

Two of the nation's latest food recalls concern cheese — and lots of it.

The recalls are distinct, citing different food safety concerns: One involves hundreds of thousands of containers of shredded mozzarella and multi-cheese blends, while the other affects several brands of grated Pecorino Romano.

But both recalls target products that have sell-by dates in 2026 and are sold in major retailers in more than a dozen states.

Here's what to know:

The shredded cheese recall

Great Lakes Cheese, an Ohio-based company that calls itself "the nation's leading natural cheese packager," initiated a recall of half a dozen kinds of shredded cheese products — from mozzarella to pizza style — in early October because they may contain fragments of metal.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) upgraded the recall's risk classification to Class II, the second highest, meaning consumption of the product could cause "temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences."

The affected cheeses are sold under dozens of brand names at nationwide retailers including Target, Walmart, Publix and Aldi.

The FDA says they were distributed to 31 states — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin — as well as Puerto Rico.

The recalled bags, with varying sell-by dates in February and March 2026, include:

Low-moisture, part-skim shredded mozzarella from the following brands: Always Save, Borden, Brookshire's, Cache Valley Creamery, Chestnut Hill, Coburn Farms, Econo, Food Club, Food Lion, Gold Rush Creamery, Good & Gather, Great Lakes Cheese, Happy Farms by Aldi, H-E-B, Hill Country Fare, Know & Love, Laura Lynn, Lucerne Dairy Farms, Nu Farm, Publix, Schnuck's, Simply Go, Sprouts Farmers Market, Stater Bros. Markets and Sunnyside Farms.
Italian-style shredded cheese blend under these brand names: Brookshire's, Cache Valley Creamery, Coburn Farms, Great Value, Happy Farms by Aldi, Know & Love, Laura Lynn, Publix and Simply Go.
Shredded pizza-style cheese blend from Econo, Food Club, Great Value, Gold Rush Creamery, Laura Lynn and Simply Go.
Mozzarella and provolone shredded cheese blend from Freedom's Choice, Good & Gather, Great Lakes Cheese and Great Value, as well as a mozzarella and Parmesan blend from Good & Gather.

The full list of products is on the FDA's website. The FDA has not published a press release or responded to NPR's request for comment about the recall. NPR reached out to Great Lakes Cheese but did not hear back by publication time.

The Pecorino Romano recall

One of several brands of grated Pecorino Romano being recalled over listeria concerns.

The Ambriola Company, a New Jersey-based cheese distributor, announced last week that it was recalling some of its products after routine testing confirmed the presence of listeria, which can cause potentially life-threatening infections.

It said that while no illnesses had been reported, it was recalling products processed at that same facility "out of an abundance of caution." Those products were distributed to retail stores — as well as other distributors — between Nov. 3 and 20, the FDA says.

"We take food safety very seriously and immediately alerted stores and distributors to remove the affected products from shelves," Ambriola CEO Phil Marfuggi said in a statement. "We are working closely with the FDA and continuing to test our products and facilities to fully understand the situation."

The recalled products are sold — both in plastic containers and in pound-size plastic bags — under the brand names Ambriola, Locatelli, Pinna, Boar's Head and Member's Mark.

They have expiration dates ranging from February to May 2026. It's not clear exactly where the cheeses ended up, though Walmart says some are sold at Walmart locations in 14 states and Sam's Club locations in 27 states.

Wegmans has also issued a recall of Locatelli-brand Pecorino Romano — over the same listeria concerns — that it says was sold in stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C., between Nov. 14 and 24.

The FDA urges customers to toss the cheese or return it for a refund, and to contact their doctor if they develop symptoms of a listeria infection, which usually start within two weeks of eating contaminated food and can include fever, headache, stiff neck and muscle aches.

In the meantime, Ambriola says it has suspended production and distribution of affected products as it conducts a "thorough review of all sanitation and food safety procedures."