13 Soda Recalls That Were Too Big To Forget

Regularly drinking sugar-sweetened soft drinks like soda has been associated with a range of negative health consequences, from a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes to worsening oral health. Despite this (and despite some sodas being banned entirely in certain places), it remains a highly popular beverage choice. That leads to a lot of soda products out there — and a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong. There have been many soda recalls throughout history, putting customers at risk and leading manufacturers to lose thousands, even millions of cans or bottles of their products.

The reasons certain sodas have been recalled are pretty nasty. The packaging it comes in has been a recurring issue, with sharp-edged or exploding cans prompting manufacturers to hastily recall their products. Other times, more has ended up in your soda can than just soda, with various unwelcome contaminants leading to millions of soda bottles being tracked down. More worryingly, some of the most notable recalls out there have been due to people tampering with the soda itself, with one recall occurring due to a nightmarish tale of poisoning and extortion that rivals the plot of a Hollywood film. Here's what you should know about some of the largest soda recalls.

Soda is the kind of drink that you can glug down without thinking much about it. Well, one recall which took place in Austria in 2024 had people second-guessing how drinkable their soda really was — and how safe it was to consume. A massive selection of sodas made by Coca-Cola HBC Austria GmbH had to be recalled because it was found that some of the ½-liter bottles may have contained metal fragments. Five different varieties of Coca-Cola, four different types of Fanta, two kinds of Sprite, and MezzoMix were all subject to the recall, which involved a massive 26 million drink bottles.

It wasn't just the size of the product selection that was an issue, either. It was also the breadth of best before dates the bottles covered, with items having to be recalled that had best by dates spanning two and a half months. So how did the metal potentially get into these bottles in the first place? The company blamed a technical error, which could have occurred due to a piece of equipment breaking down while the bottles were being produced. Good thing they recalled the items when they did, as metal fragments can be incredibly dangerous in foods and drinks, potentially causing cuts to the mouth, throat, and intestines.

We don't blame you for feeling like zero sugar lemonade is too good to be true. All of that flavor, with no sugar whatsoever? It can't be real! Unfortunately, in 2024 those who believed this were kind of proven right when a mislabeling incident led to full sugar lemonade being sent to market in cans marked as zero sugar. Over 13,000 cases of Minute Maid Zero Sugar Lemonade had to be recalled after it was discovered that the drink inside the cans was the full sugar formula. As each case contained 12 cans of lemonade, more than 150,000 individual drinks were affected by this issue.

This mislabeling mishap may seem fairly innocent, but it's a little more dangerous than you might think. There's a huge difference between the two drinks nutritionally, with the full sugar version containing a high amount of — you guessed it — sugar. This may cause a spike in blood sugar for most people, but for people who are diabetic or have a glucose intolerance, the effect would be even more pronounced and potentially a big health risk.

Soda recalls are far from modern, folks — they've been happening for decades, in pretty large numbers. Back in 1999, one of the biggest soda recalls ever took place across Europe, as a result of individuals seemingly falling ill after consuming their beverages. Governments in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands had to announce recalls of sodas made by the Coca-Cola Company, with the domino effect of recalls occurring when dozens of middle-school students claimed they fell ill after drinking Coke. Pretty soon, over 100 kids stated they had become sick from consuming the seemingly-tainted beverages, leading to a scramble to get the products back.

The reason behind the recall was murky at first, and as it came swiftly after a dioxin scare across Belgium, a lot of people were very worried and assumed that this was the offending ingredient. However, the eventual truth was a lot more complicated. According to an article published in The Lancet, analysis of the recalled bottles didn't point to any dioxin. Instead, small traces of two other substances were identified but unlikely to be harmful. The article argued that these "illnesses" could have been a result of mass sociogenic illness, also known as mass hysteria, and may not have actually been caused by any contamination or poisoning.

The phrase "foreign material" is pretty worrying, huh? It could refer to anything, but when it comes to food and drinks recalls, it rarely means anything good. In 2023, potential foreign material was the cited cause of a recall of a variety of fan favorites made by Coca-Cola. Cases of Sprite, Diet Coke, and Fanta Orange all had to be recalled across three different states, because it appeared that something had gotten inside of them. The amount that had to be grabbed back was small for Fanta, with the issue only potentially affecting 14 cases of the drink, but when it came to Sprite, well over 1,500 units were affected.

Affected with what, though? For some reason, Coca-Cola wasn't forthcoming about what "foreign material" referred to in this case, which raises a few eyebrows. This isn't just an issue about transparency with your customers, either. It's vital to let people know what they're dealing with, in case they accidentally drink one of the affected products and need medical attention as a result. Luckily, there were no illnesses or injuries reported when the recall was announced — but really, we would have liked it if Coca-Cola told people what to look out for.

The dynamically-named Wisco Pop! (which is still soda, folks) promises a pretty explosive experience when you're drinking it — but we're willing to bet the company doesn't actually want things popping off with its beverages. Unfortunately, in 2022, its name became a reality. Wisco Pop! had to announce a voluntary recall of four different flavors of its sodas because the cans were at risk of exploding in people's hands as a result of over-carbonation. This occurred following reports that a few beverages did in fact pop when still unopened.

This might just seem like excellent branding on Wisco Pop!'s part, but there was also a safety issue at play here. Exploding cans are hardly injury-proof, and there was a sincere worry that people could be seriously affected by the explosions. Apparently, the issue was caused by stray wild yeast making its way into certain cans. This wild yeast would then begin fermenting and cause a build-up of gas and the pop that Wisco Pop! promised. This fermentation was fed by the sugar in the sodas, giving the yeast something to chow down on and create bubbles from.

It's no surprise to anyone that soda cans can be a little risky to drink from. Once opened, they can expose a fairly sharp area, and they can be bent in ways that create sharp edges (hey, they're made of metal, after all). Over the years, drinks manufacturers have put a lot of thought into how to make their cans as safe as possible, with things like push tabs quickly falling out of fashion due to injury concerns. So it makes it all the more surprising that a company like Coca-Cola would produce cans with sharp edges, the cause of a major recall in 2018.

The company was left having to recall more than 766,000 cases of nine different brands of canned drinks (which equated to millions of individual cans) when a manufacturing issue caused certain beverages to have a sharp edge on the lid. Coca-Cola blamed a malfunction in its production process which took place during the sealing of the cans. Somewhat embarrassingly for Coca-Cola, it didn't catch the issue before the cans went out, and it was instead alerted by several customers who discovered the sharp edges. A few people had also apparently sustained small injuries from the affected cans, but Coca-Cola was keen to stress that none of them required a medical response.

We're gonna go out on a limb here and say that most people don't want ammonia anywhere near their sodas. Way back in 1998, though, that was far from a certainty for folks in Indianapolis. Thousands of caffeine-free Coke Classic cans distributed across the city had to be recalled because of potential ammonia contamination, thanks to leaky equipment. Apparently, the refrigeration apparatus that was used to give the drinks their fizz had malfunctioned, resulting in ammonia potentially making its way into the cans.

Ammonia is used during the carbonation process due to its efficiency and ability to withstand degradation, but with those positives come one big negative: The risk of contamination. This contamination can take several different forms. As a gas, ammonia mainly introduces an unpleasant odor, and its smell tends to put people off inhaling it at hazardous levels. It's more dangerous when it's ingested or comes into contact with the skin, which can both cause irritation. Thankfully, this potential contamination wasn't thought to be too risky or dangerous, but it's still pretty frightening to think that these chemicals can end up in your drinks.

You can generally rely on Trader Joe's for good-quality snacks, meals, and drinks — and at the very least, you can usually depend on its products not to explode in your hands. That may be true most of the time, but it wasn't true back in 2015. That year, Trader Joe's had to put out a recall for its Triple Ginger Brew soda, because customers were finding that the bottles were quite literally blowing up.

This was, of course, a massive safety issue for the retailer. It was made even worse by the fact that these bottles were made of glass, and their explosion could result in some serious injuries. Unfortunately, it wasn't just bottles that were produced over a few days that were affected, either. Trader Joe's had to recall bottles of Triple Ginger Brew that were sold over more than a month's time span. The company was at pains to stress that if people decided to still drink the beverage, it would be entirely safe (provided that the bottle didn't explode midway through sipping it, of course). However, it did the right thing and removed the drink from its stores.

Soda may seem simple, but developing and sustaining products that offer quality to a wide range of people is harder than it looks. This is something that the giant of all sodas, Coca-Cola, proved back in 2001 when it had to action a huge recall across Belgium. Approximately 700,000 bottles of its Fanta-Pomelo soda had to be recalled because the quality was found not to be up to scratch. Coca-Cola discovered that the product had been exposed to light, which led to its taste and color changing and an overall substandard product.

It's worth pointing out that this recall wasn't prompted because there was a safety issue or risk. The drink was still totally fine to consume, but Coca-Cola was instead worried about selling a poor product to its customers. We've gotta say, we do kinda respect that reasoning — Coca-Cola could easily have ignored the issue and sold the product anyway. It was pretty wise to recall them, however, given that the company was still recovering from some major recalls that had people slightly doubting whether Coca-Cola products were safe to drink. Nice bit of reputational management from the soft drink supremo, there.

If we had to make a list of ingredients that we didn't want anywhere near soda, cyanide would be pretty close to the top. Somewhat incredibly, though, in 1986 the prospect of drinking soda that contained cyanide was a real possibility. Even more incredibly, this wasn't as a result of some kind of filtering issue or manufacturing malfunction, but instead due to a terrifying threat from a member of the public.

It all began when a 911 operator received a call one Thursday evening. The New York-based caller chillingly claimed that he had laced one or several bottles of soda with cyanide. The caller had specified that he had poisoned Pepsi bottles, but the company responded by pulling a large amount of its Lemon Lime Slice soda bottles off the shelves, due to the fact that they seemed to match the product code the caller dictated on the phone. When the company checked the bottles, they didn't find any cyanide present, and it was assumed that it was an empty threat. However, the call came at pretty much the same time as a different call from someone claiming they had poisoned Jell-O products with the deadly substance, leading to widespread concerns and another recall.

The presence of iron in food is normally a good thing, helping us stay topped up on our daily intake and consume a valuable mineral that's vital for bodily processes. It's not always welcome, though — and in 2006, it was the cause of an enormous soda recall. Almost 2.4 million bottles of six different types of soda had to be recalled by Coca-Cola in Japan because they had potentially been contaminated with iron powder. In a pretty worrying turn of events, the iron was apparently accidentally injected into the bottles while they were being produced.

The massive amount of bottles was an increased number from the initial recall. Coca-Cola originally thought that it could get away with recalling just 570,000 bottles, but it quickly became apparent that it had to track down way more than that. The bottles had been primarily distributed across three different regions in Japan. While the company stressed that drinking the bottles would be safe, this was clearly an issue it had to solve, due to the fact that the label's nutritional information likely didn't match what was inside.

Of all the soda recall stories out there (and there are some pretty wild ones, folks), this has to be the strangest. In 2006, the Coca-Cola Korea Bottling Company had to put out a wide recall of its sodas, after a woman became seriously ill from drinking one of them. It turned out that the bottle was laced with weed killer, which was apparently injected into it. In total, three bottles of Coke were found to be poisoned with the substance, with the incident also affecting a man who was hospitalized upon consuming the drink — but Coca-Cola Korea Bottling Company had to recall around 40,000 cases of its products.

The incident in South Korea, which borders one of the countries where Coca-Cola isn't sold, led to the arrest of a 41-year-old woman who was accused of poisoning the bottles. It was alleged that the woman was trying to extort the company for more than $2 million dollars, following threats that she would poison bottles of Coke, posted on Coca-Cola's website and called in to officials. The incident led to a drop in Coca-Cola's sales across the country, with folks clearly afraid to trust the brand after the incident.

Soda that comes in a glass bottle always feels pretty old-school, and some folks are convinced that it tastes better too. You may want your soda bottled in glass, but you definitely don't want glass inside your soda. Regrettably, in 2013 this was a real possibility in New Zealand, where several different sodas had to be recalled because of the potential for glass fragments in the drinks. Schweppes Lemonade and Dry Ginger Ale, as well as a Soda Lemon Twist, Tonic Water, and Soda, all had to be recalled by Coca-Cola.

Schweppes may be the oldest soda brand you can find in stores, but it seems like it still hasn't figured out how to avoid mishaps like this. The potential presence of glass was apparently the result of a manufacturing issue. Coca-Cola informed customers and suppliers alike that some of the glass bottles may have been chipped, which could lead to fragments breaking off and getting into the drinks. What was especially annoying for Coca-Cola was that these bottles weren't just sold in supermarkets; they may also have been sold individually in cafes or licensed premises.