The testing that led to this recall happened in a state where the cinnamon was never listed as sold. Maryland is absent from the six-state distribution list for Lior Cinnamon Ground Seasoning, yet a sample collected and analyzed by the Maryland Department of Health came back with elevated lead, and importer Galil Importing Corp. of Hauppauge, New York, pulled the product.
No illnesses have been reported to date, according to the notice. The recalled item is narrow: one lot, one UPC, one container size. Nothing else that Galil imports is named in the recall, and the notice does not extend to other Lior spices or to other lots of the cinnamon.
The Lot, the UPC and the Lab
Galil Importing’s notice, which the FDA posted on September 24, identifies the affected product as Lior Cinnamon Ground Seasoning in 90-gram transparent plastic containers, packed six to a case. The lot code, GAP11304, is printed on the side of the container under the ingredient line, and the UPC is 794711005484. The notice credits the Maryland Department of Health with collecting the sample and analyzing it, and says the analysis showed the product contained elevated levels of lead.
It never gives a concentration. Without a measured value, the public cannot tell whether the cinnamon sat just over an action level or far above it, and the same is true of the sample’s location, which the notice leaves unstated. KTVU’s coverage and Food Safety News likewise publish no figure, and Food Safety News adds that Galil has adopted enhanced testing and supplier verification measures to prevent a recurrence.
New York to Illinois, Nearly Ten Months
The distribution list names six states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida and Illinois. The notice puts the sale window at November 18, 2025 through September 7, 2026, which is just under ten months of shelves and pantries stocked with the lot. Retail outlets in those states included grocery stores, delis and supermarkets, according to KTVU.
Retail shelves are only part of how a spice reaches a kitchen. Galil Importing Corp. is an importer, so the cinnamon passed through grocery stores, delis and supermarkets in the six states before it reached shoppers, and each of those channels turns over at a different pace. The window matters for lead because of how people use ground spices. A 90-gram container is a small purchase that can sit in a cabinet for a year, and the notice’s end date of September 7 does not mean every container has been emptied or thrown out. A household that bought the cinnamon in the winter, when the sale window had just opened, may still be shaking it onto oatmeal in October, and a spice jar that old is easy to overlook when a recall notice appears.
Lead and Children
The FDA’s notice spells out the risk in a pair of sentences. Short-term exposure to very low levels of lead may not cause any symptoms, and an increased blood lead level may be the only visible sign. Prolonged exposure in children, it says, can result in learning disorders, developmental defects and other long-term health problems.
The agency’s broader guidance on lead in food says the most serious effects occur during active brain development, with exposure in fetal life, infancy and early childhood linked to learning disabilities, behavior difficulties and lowered IQ, and it notes that smaller body size and rapid growth raise the risk for children. The same page says FDA continues to monitor ground cinnamon for lead following the October 2023 recall of WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree, in which it linked elevated lead to cinnamon and raised the concern of lead toxicity in children, and it states that no known safe level of lead exposure exists. The CDC’s lead prevention overview states that no safe blood lead level has been identified in children and that even low levels are associated with developmental delays, learning difficulty and behavioral problems.
KTVU quotes the FDA’s own wording on duration: if a child is exposed to enough lead for a protracted period, on the order of weeks to months, permanent damage to the central nervous system may occur. That is why a sale window measured in months, and not days, carries weight here. The CDC uses a blood lead reference value of 3.5 micrograms per deciliter to flag children with elevated levels and estimates that roughly 500,000 U.S. children sit at or above it. Whether any child in the six states was exposed through this lot cannot be read from the notice, because the only count in the notice is zero reported illnesses, and lead can raise a blood level without producing a symptom that anyone would report.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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