The Series Of Seafood Recalls That Left Consumers Sick To Their Stomachs

Just eating raw oysters leaves room for many surprises. How meaty will they be? How briny? Will there be any residual sand inside? The luckiest consumers even find pearls. However, hundreds of unlucky oyster consumers were recently left with the worst of surprises: norovirus. From December 2024 to February 2025, several oyster farms across North America issued recalls due to norovirus contamination. These alerts came during the 2024 rise in food recalls during which seafood recalls alone affected millions.

The earliest recall included contaminated Fanny Bay, Sunseeker, and Cloudy Bar oysters harvested in British Columbia between late November and early December 2024. Taylor Shellfish Canada issued the recall, noting that the oysters were distributed to Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario, Canada, as well as California. 

Then, in the second week of December 2024, oysters from Pacific Northwest Shellfish and Union Bay Seafood were found to be contaminated with norovirus, so those two farms recalled Fanny Bay, Buckley Bay, and Royal Miyagi oysters harvested between December 1 and 9 in British Columbia, Canada — they were shipped to at least 15 U.S. states. Ruco's Shellfish — a Washington-based oyster farm — also recalled oysters harvested from a section of the Hammersley Inlet between December 2 and 17.

The back-to-back oyster recalls did not just plague 2024. A Louisiana-based oyster farm and shellfish company issued a recall of oysters harvested after January 10, 2025, following a string of norovirus cases linked to a harvesting area around the Chandeleur Islands. The Louisiana Department of Health closed the harvesting area on February 4, and by February 25, most of the area had been reopened. However, the contaminated oysters still made it to 19 states, including Florida, Alabama, New York, Vermont, and Minnesota. There were at least 266 reported illnesses associated with the outbreak. All other Louisiana-harvested shellfish and seafood were deemed safe for consumption.

In all instances, government agencies instructed restaurants, retailers, and consumers alike not to purchase, sell, serve, or eat any of the oysters known to carry norovirus. The agencies also noted the importance of safe handling of the contaminated shellfish and proper sanitization of any surface that came in contact with the oysters to avoid cross contamination.