Stewart’s Shops recalls two ice creams after a shopper found metal in a carton

Inside one half-gallon carton of Stewart’s ice cream, a customer found a metal object, and that single discovery is the entire basis for a recall that now covers two flavors sold in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Stewart’s Shops Corp., based in Saratoga Springs, New York, announced the recall on Oct. 2, 2026, in a notice the Food and Drug Administration posted on its recalls page.

The company’s wording is short and specific: the recall was initiated after a metal object was discovered by a consumer in a half-gallon carton.

Heavenly Medley and Vanilla-Chocolate-Strawberry, by UPC

The FDA-posted recall notice names exactly two products. The first is Heavenly Medley in the half-gallon (1.89-liter) carton, UPC 0 82086 44371 1, with a best-by date of Feb. 10, 2027. The second is Vanilla-Chocolate-Strawberry in the half-gallon carton, UPC 0 82086 44377 3, best by Feb. 11, 2027. A carton has to match both the flavor and the date to be part of the recall.

Heavenly Medley is the chain’s chocolate ice cream with chocolatey almonds, chocolate chips and a marshmallow swirl, according to a review of the flavor that also notes it is sold only in the half-gallon size. The reviewer traces the flavor to Heavenly Hash, a candy that began roughly a century ago before turning into an ice cream flavor at many brands, and guesses that Stewart’s renamed it because competitors such as Perry’s use the older name. The recall notice itself lists only the two half-gallon cartons; it names no pints, quarts or novelty items.

Three states and a sale window from July 17 to Oct. 2

Distribution is bounded by place and by calendar. The notice says the affected cartons were sold at Stewart’s Shops locations in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire between July 17, 2026, and Oct. 2, 2026, the day the recall was announced. Stewart’s describes itself on its own website as a family-owned chain of convenience stores and gas stations, and its site invites visitors to tour its plant. The recall is correspondingly narrow: one retailer’s own stores and a single window of sales, with no nationwide distribution list.

The recalled products carry best-by dates in February 2027, months after the sale window closes, so cartons bought in July could still be sitting in a home freezer in October. The window runs 77 days, from mid-July to the day the recall went public. The notice tells people who bought either product not to eat it and to return it to any Stewart’s Shops location for a full refund.

Stewart’s states in the notice that no injuries or illnesses have been reported to date, which leaves the single consumer discovery as the only documented event behind the recall.

FDA’s size thresholds for hard or sharp objects in food

Metal in food falls under a specific federal enforcement policy, and the numbers in it are the closest thing to a yardstick for a story like this one. The FDA’s compliance policy guide on hard or sharp foreign objects, finalized in May 2005, treats objects under 7 millimeters as generally safe for the general population while flagging infants, the elderly and post-surgical patients as groups at special risk. The guide also separates natural components, such as bones in seafood or shells in nuts, which consumers generally expect, from foreign objects that no label or custom would lead anyone to expect in a dessert. Objects from 7 to 25 millimeters in ready-to-eat food trigger direct seizure authority, and anything over 25 millimeters warrants a recommendation for legal action.

The guide names the harm in plain terms: laceration and perforation of tissues of the mouth, tongue, throat, stomach and intestine, as well as damage to teeth and gums. Stewart’s notice does not say how large the object was, what it was made of or whether it came from equipment or an ingredient, so the guide’s thresholds cannot be applied to this carton from the public record.

The notice itself is the kind of document that appears on the FDA’s recalls, market withdrawals and safety alerts page, which the agency says is compiled from press releases and public notices about certain recalls of FDA-regulated products. FDA states that not every recall gets a press release or a listing there, and entries stay posted for three years before they are archived.

The public record therefore rests on one carton, two UPCs and a company statement dated Oct. 2. Stewart’s has not described how the object reached the shopper’s carton, how large it was or whether any other carton from the same production run contained anything similar. Those details determine whether the guide’s 7-millimeter line is even in play, and they are the ones the notice leaves blank.

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

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