Shoppers are being urged to check fridges, freezers and bathroom cupboards after fresh recall notices from Tesco and Waitrose identified allergy and product-safety risks in several items sold in the UK.
The most recent Tesco food alert concerns Tesco Finest Caesar & Smoked Bacon Coleslaw in a 270g pack with a use-by date of 4 September 2026. The Food Standards Agency says some packs may actually contain Tesco Finest Four Cheese Potato Salad. That different product contains mustard, which is not declared on the coleslaw label.
For most customers, the packaging error is an inconvenience. For someone with a mustard allergy, it can be a genuine health risk. The FSA advises anyone with a mustard allergy who has the affected pack not to eat it. Customers can return the product to Tesco for a full refund.
Waitrose has a separate food recall involving its Rhubarb Crumble 500g with a use-by date of 19 August 2026. The product contains oats, and therefore gluten, that were not declared on the label. That makes it unsuitable for people with an allergy or intolerance to oats or gluten and for people with coeliac disease.
The date may make the crumble look like an expired issue, but there is a reason the notice still matters in September. The product carried home-freezing instructions, so Waitrose and the FSA are specifically telling customers to check their freezers. Anyone who finds the affected crumble and is in one of the risk groups should not consume it and should return it for a refund.
Waitrose is also displaying a non-food recall for Baylis & Harding Goodness Oud, Cedar & Amber hand-wash refill pouches in the one-litre size. The affected batch codes are 6210A and 6211A, printed on the base of the pouch. According to the retailer’s notice, those batches were found to be outside microbiological specification.
Customers with one of those hand-wash refills are told not to use it. Waitrose advises packaging the item and returning it to a branch for a refund.
The three notices illustrate why recall details matter more than a product name alone. A recall may apply only to one pack size, one use-by date or a small group of batch codes. Throwing away every similar product is unnecessary; ignoring the identifying details can be risky.
For the Tesco coleslaw, the key identifiers are the 270g pack and use-by 4 September. For the Waitrose crumble, it is the 500g product with use-by 19 August, including packs that were frozen at home. For the Baylis & Harding refill, the decisive information is batch 6210A or 6211A.
Customers with food allergies should treat undeclared-allergen notices seriously even if the product looks and smells normal. The problem is not spoilage but information missing from the label. Likewise, a microbiological-specification failure in a personal-care product may not be visible to the customer.
Retailers publish recall information on their official websites, while the Food Standards Agency posts food alerts. Those channels are more reliable than screenshots circulating on social media, which can omit batch numbers or remain online long after a recall has changed.
The immediate advice is simple: check the identifiers, do not consume or use an affected item, and follow the retailer’s return instructions. The warnings are narrow, but for the customers they apply to, the details are the difference between an ordinary product and one that should be taken out of use.