The rolling ball on a Ricky Joy Sour Crush candy bottle can detach, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission warns that a child choking on it could be seriously injured or killed. About 2.3 million bottles are covered, sold from January 2023 through May 2026 at about $3 each, or between $13 and $32 for a multi-pack. Recall number 26-748 was announced on September 10, 2026, and the notice reports no injuries.
A rollerball dispenser is a plastic bottle with a small sphere seated in its neck that turns against a surface to transfer liquid. If the sphere pops out, it becomes a loose object small enough to reach a child’s mouth.
The Sour Crush bottle and what CPSC reported
The CPSC’s recall notice covers about 2.3 million Ricky Joy Sour Crush Rolling Liquid Candy bottles. Each holds 1.85 fluid ounces of sour liquid candy in blue raspberry, strawberry, green apple or watermelon, and carries the Ricky Joy logo and “EXTREME SOUR” branding with a green monster image. The bottles were made in Colombia and imported by International Trade Imports LLC, doing business as The Ricky Joy Company of Cumming, Georgia.
The sales list is wide. H-E-B, Forman Mill and candy stores nationwide carried the bottles, and online sellers included Walmart.com, CandyFunHouse.com and RickyJoy.com. The instruction is to take the bottles away from children, stop using them at once and ask the company for a refund; a prepaid shipping label covers the return, and requests can be made by phone at 404-975-0352. A Fox Business report on the recall notes that no injuries have been reported so far.
The small parts rule that frames detachment
The notice does not name the standard the bottles were measured against, and nothing in it says the product violated a particular regulation. The federal framework for the kind of defect it describes, a part that comes loose and can be swallowed, is the small parts rule. It applies, in the words of 16 CFR Part 1501, to “all toys and other articles intended for use by children under 3 years (36 months) of age” introduced into interstate commerce.
CPSC’s business guidance explains that the small parts cylinder “approximates the size of the fully expanded throat of a child under three years old.” A small part is “any object that fits, without compressing and in any orientation, entirely into the small parts cylinder,” and that includes a piece that breaks off during testing that simulates use or abuse by children. The test procedure in 16 CFR 1501.4 has two stages: the article is placed in the cylinder as sold, and then, after use-and-abuse testing, every detached component other than paper, fabric, yarn, fuzz, elastic or string is tried in the cylinder too. Any piece that fits entirely inside, in any orientation and without compression, fails.
Part 1501 also lists what it leaves out: balloons, books, writing materials, clothing, grooming products, and rattles and pacifiers are exempt from its size test. For children aged 3 to 6, CPSC’s guidance says products containing small parts, balloons, small balls or marbles fall under separate choking hazard warning-label requirements in 16 CFR 1500.19, so a product can sit outside the under-3 ban and still be regulated for small parts.
That second stage is the one a rollerball bottle would raise. A ball seated in a neck is attached when it leaves the factory, so a pass at the first stage says little about whether it stays put after a child bites, squeezes or shakes it.
ASTM F963 and the children’s product regime
Toys carry a second layer of federal rules. CPSC’s toy safety guidance states that Section 106 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 “made ASTM F963 a mandatory consumer product safety standard for children’s toys,” and points back to 16 CFR part 1501 for the small parts ban. The agency adds that testing and certification requirements apply only to products designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger.
Whether a candy dispenser is a toy, a food container or both is a jurisdictional question the recall notice does not address. CPSC’s small parts guidance does not cover candy-toy combinations either, and refers such questions to its Small Business Ombudsman at 888-531-9070 or [email protected].
Roughly three and a half years of sales put about 2.3 million bottles in circulation, and CPSC’s notice documents no injury in that time. The number that would explain the recall is missing from the notice: how many of the 2.3 million bottles actually lost a ball before the agency acted. Without it, the record offers a sales window and a unit count, but no measure of how often the part fails.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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