Recall is not the tail risk here. It is the main one.
Cover for food and beverage producers, co-packers and commissaries — where contamination, allergens and labelling drive claims that liability cover alone does not answer.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
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What food manufacturing businesses actually need.
Product liability
Illness or injury from something you produced.
Without it — A single contamination event reaches every consumer who bought the lot.
Product recall and contamination
Withdrawal costs, destruction, replacement and lost profit — including accidental contamination.
Without it — The likeliest large loss in food, and excluded from the liability policy.
Spoilage and refrigeration breakdown
Stock lost when refrigeration fails or power is interrupted.
Without it — A cold-store failure over a weekend writes off inventory a property policy will not.
Labelling and allergen exposure
Claims from an undeclared allergen or an incorrect label.
Without it — The most common recall cause in the sector is a printing error, not a pathogen.
Customer requirements
The limits and additional insured wording grocery and distribution contracts demand.
Without it — A retail listing can hinge on a certificate you cannot produce.
What food manufacturing operators ask us.
What is the most common recall cause?
Undeclared allergens — consistently ahead of pathogens in US recall counts. That is worth sitting with, because it reframes the risk: the likeliest event is not a hygiene failure in the plant, it is a label, a supplier changing a formulation without telling you, or a line changeover leaving residue. Those are documentation and process controls, and underwriters price them.
We use a co-packer. Whose problem is a recall?
Both of yours, and the contract decides how it is split — usually badly for the brand. The brand owner is who consumers and retailers pursue, whatever the agreement says, so a brand relying on the co-packer’s policy is relying on a limit it does not control, shared with every other brand that packer runs. Read the indemnity and the insurance clause together, get named where you can, and carry your own recall cover.
Does our policy cover a recall by a customer of ours?
That is third-party recall, and it is a separate grant. If you supply an ingredient and the finished-goods maker recalls their product because of it, the loss is the cost of THEIR recall — routinely far larger than your sales to them. Ingredient and component suppliers are the ones most exposed to this and least likely to have it.
What do the retailers actually require?
Published, non-negotiable, and different for each: a products limit, additional insured status for the vendor, often primary and non-contributory wording, and increasingly evidence of recall cover with its own limit. Send the vendor agreement rather than a summary of it — the exact wording is what gets a certificate rejected, and paraphrase is where that goes wrong.
Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.