A cinnamon seasoning sold in six states is recalled over elevated lead levels

Galil Importing Corp has recalled its Lior brand Ground Cinnamon Seasoning after a routine sample turned up elevated levels of lead, the Hauppauge, New York-based importer announced on September 24, 2026. The affected jars, identified by lot code GAP11304 and UPC 794711005484, reached store shelves in six states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, and Illinois, sold in 90-gram plastic containers packed six to a case between November 18, 2025, and September 7, 2026.

No illnesses have been reported in connection with the seasoning. The company says it moved the same day the lead reading came back, telling distributors and retailers to pull the product from sale before the notice ever reached the FDA’s public recall page.

A Single Lot Number Behind a Six-State Recall

The recall notice itself, posted to the FDA’s site, states plainly that Galil Importing Corp “immediately initiated a voluntary recall and is notifying customers to stop distribution and sale of the affected product” once the lead reading came back. Only the single GAP11304 lot is implicated, a detail that matters for anyone holding a jar of Lior cinnamon bought during the ten-month distribution window, since other lot codes sold under the same brand are not covered by the notice and remain on the market.

The single-lot scope explains why the six states line up with Galil’s distribution map for that particular batch rather than its full customer base: New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania form its core Northeast footprint, while Texas, Florida, and Illinois represent separate retail and wholesale accounts that happened to receive the same contaminated run.

The notice tells anyone holding an affected jar what to do next in the same unadorned language: consumers “should not consume the product and should either discard it or return it to the place of purchase for a refund.” Anyone with questions can reach the company directly at the phone number listed on the notice, a New York area line answered on weekdays; there is no separate hotline, website form, or third-party claims process attached to this particular recall.

Maryland’s Lab Test That Caught What Six States Missed

None of the testing that caught the contamination happened in a state where Lior cinnamon was actually sold. It was the Maryland Department of Health, screening spice samples as part of its own lead-monitoring work, that identified the elevated reading and passed it along to Galil Importing Corp and the FDA, according to the recall notice. Maryland does not appear among the six distribution states, meaning a state with no supply of the product ended up flagging a hazard that six others had already put on their shelves months earlier.

The FDA’s public notice, rather than a company statement or a separate agency investigation, carries almost all of the detail available about how the finding unfolded, which is typical for a voluntary recall where the manufacturer’s own account is posted largely as submitted.

What Lead Exposure Does Inside a Child’s Body

The FDA’s own guidance on the metal spells out the stakes bluntly: prolonged exposure in children can cause “permanent damage to the central nervous system”, along with developmental delays and learning disorders that may not surface until years later. Short-term, low-level exposure often produces no visible symptoms at all and can only be confirmed through a blood test, part of why the agency treats even a single contaminated lot of spice as worth a public recall rather than a quiet correction handled between the company and its distributors.

Children absorb lead more efficiently than adults, and their still-developing nervous systems are more vulnerable to it, which is why the FDA’s broader Closer to Zero initiative names young children and pregnant women specifically when explaining why the agency keeps tightening allowable lead levels across the food supply instead of leaving older thresholds in place.

A Pattern That Predates This Particular Jar

Ground cinnamon has become a repeat entry in FDA lead findings. A separate 2024 case involving El Chilar-brand ground cinnamon, traced to a Maryland distributor and also uncovered through state health department testing, eventually covered four separate lots after the company expanded its recall a second time. The FDA still lists that episode in its recall archive as an example of the same contamination pathway suspected here: raw cinnamon bark, or the equipment used to grind it, picking up lead somewhere upstream of the U.S. importer, long before a state lab ever pulls a sample.

Coverage of the Lior recall spread quickly once national outlets picked up the FDA notice, mostly repeating the same six-state list and the September 24 announcement date without adding new detail, since the underlying record is still a single company’s account of a single contaminated lot. For now, the only numbers attached to the case are the ones printed on the FDA’s own page: one lot, six states, and zero confirmed illnesses as of the announcement.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

More from Morning Overview