Agropur's Natrel fresh milk brand was worst hit by the now completed recall, detailed in a post published on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) website on October 8.
Specific one and two litre cartons and four litre bottles of Natrel brand fine-filtered skimmed, 1% fat, 2% fat, and homogenized milk have been recalled from retailers in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec.
Certain one, two, and four litre units of Natrel organic 1%, 2%, and 3.8% whole milk were also recalled.
Some two and four litre Irresistibles Bio 2% and 3.8% organic milk, processed by Agropur for Canadian retailer Metro, and two litres cartons of PC Organics 1%, 2%, and 3.8% whole milk were also affected by the recall.
Speaking with DairyReporter.com, Marc Labelle, public relations and communications director, Agropur, declined to speculate on the total cost of the action.
“Costs are not evaluated and will not be made public," he said.
"Technical problem"
Despite the recall, Agropur's Natrel brand insisted in a statement published on its website that the milk in question "does not represent a health hazard."
Continuing, the statement attributed the issue to a "technical problem" at Agropur's Quebec City processing facility that resulted in a risk the milk would "not reach the end date indicated on the package."
The issue, according to reports from Canada, was caused by "tiny cracks" in pasteurizing equipment at the plant.
Actions have, however, already been taken to remedy the problem, said Labelle.
"We have had technical problems at our Quebec City plant, we did rigorous testing, cleaned our system's components, and replaced major parts of our Natrel milk manufacturing systems to make sure this situation does not happen again," he said.