That brick of cheddar sitting in the back of your fridge drawer, the one stamped with a date somewhere in 2027, deserves a second look. Raw milk cheese keeps for a very long time, which is exactly why a recall issued in late September is still a live problem in American kitchens. Sierra Nevada Cheese Company has pulled every one of its Graziers Raw Milk Cheese products from the market nationwide after the Food and Drug Administration told the company its medium cheddar had been linked to a multistate E. coli outbreak that has hospitalized eight people.
Every Graziers Raw Milk Cheese Is Covered
The recall is not limited to a batch or a single flavor. It covers all Graziers Raw Milk Cheese in distribution, which means four retail varieties: medium cheddar, sharp cheddar, jalapeño jack and Monterey jack.
The retail packages are the 16-ounce medium cheddar brick (UPC 6-87652-16501-3), the 8-ounce medium cheddar square (6-87652-16506-8), the 8-ounce sharp cheddar square (6-87652-16507-5), the 8-ounce jalapeño jack square (6-87652-16403-0) and the 8-ounce Monterey jack square (6-87652-16400-9).
Sierra Nevada explained the blanket approach in its recall notice posted to the FDA website. “At this time, the investigation has not been narrowed to a specific lot, date code or production date,” the company said, adding that it was recalling everything out of an abundance of caution. The company also said it immediately stopped production and shipment of all Graziers Raw Milk Cheese, notified customers who bought the products directly, and posted notices on its website and social media.
Thirteen People Sick Across Nine States
The strain behind the outbreak investigation is E. coli O26:H11. As of Sept. 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had counted 13 illnesses in California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee and Utah. Eight of those people were hospitalized, and three of them developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure.
Most of the cases are young children. More than half of the people sickened are age 5 or younger, and the patient age range runs from one year old to 58, with a median age of five. California and Nevada account for three cases each. The rest of the states have one apiece.
Illnesses started between July 7, 2026, and Aug. 26, 2026. Investigators interviewed nine of the people who got sick, and all nine said they had eaten Sierra Nevada Graziers raw milk cheese beforehand. That is about as clean a signal as these investigations ever produce, and it is why the FDA contacted the company and recommended a recall.
Restaurants And Delis Got It Too
Grocery shelves were only part of the distribution. The recall also sweeps up the big food service formats: 5-pound loaves of Monterey jack (item 6425), jalapeño jack (item 6426), medium cheddar (item 6510) and sharp cheddar (item 6511), plus 40-pound cheddar blocks sold under items 6515 and 6516. Those are the sizes that end up behind a deli counter, in a sandwich shop walk-in, or shredded into somebody else’s product.
The FDA says the recalled cheese was sold at retailers nationwide and online, along with direct sales to consumers and wholesalers, and the agency does not name specific stores. The enforcement listing that followed names the states where the cheeses were sold: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
The Expiration Dates Stretch Into Late 2027
This is the part that makes a September recall matter in your kitchen weeks later. The lot and expiration pairs released for Graziers run deep into next year. An 8-ounce sharp cheddar lot is dated 9/14/2027. A 16-ounce medium cheddar lot carries 9/22/2027. An 8-ounce medium cheddar lot is stamped 9/9/2027.
Plenty of the listed lots carry 2026 dates too, including Monterey jack squares marked 8/19/2026 and 9/16/2026, so a package bought months ago and shoved behind the milk is not automatically in the clear. Hard cheese does not announce itself. It sits there looking exactly like cheese.
Check the fridge drawer, the door shelves, and any vacuum-sealed wedge you stashed in the freezer. Match the brand name first, then the size and the lot. Graziers is the brand to look for, not Sierra Nevada, which is the company name on the back of the package.
Throw It Out Or Take It Back
The instruction from the FDA and the company is the same: do not eat it, do not serve it, do not sell it. Put it in a secure trash can or return it to the store where you bought it for a refund. Wholesale and food service buyers are told to go back to their distributor.
Clean the spot where it sat. The recommended sanitizing mix is 1 tablespoon of bleach to 1 gallon of water, or a commercial kitchen sanitizer, on any surface the cheese touched. Graters and cutting boards count.
Sierra Nevada Cheese Company is taking questions about the recall at 530-934-8662, between 11:30 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.
Raw Milk Is The Thread Running Through It
Graziers is made from raw milk, meaning milk that has not been pasteurized. Aging has long been treated as the workaround for cheese made this way, with a 60-day aging window thought to knock out most bacteria before the wheel ever reaches a store.
James E. Rogers, PhD, director of product and food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports, says that assumption has limits. “The aging process for raw cheese should eliminate most pathogens, but even the best studies show some can still remain,” Rogers says.
That is the practical argument against treating a raw milk label as a mark of quality at the cheese counter. It tells you about the process, not about what survived it.
A Dozen More Cheeses Pulled North Of The Border
A separate recall landed on Oct. 14, 2026, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a warning covering 12 organic cheeses over possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The products were distributed across Canada and the recalling firm is Fromagerie L’Ancêtre Inc., a Quebec cheesemaker.
Three brand names are involved. Farm Boy accounts for five block cheeses: Organic Swiss (190 g), Organic Medium Cheddar (200 g), Organic Old Cheddar (200 g), Organic Extra Sharp Cheddar (200 g) and Organic 3 Year Old Cheddar (195 g). Six L’Ancêtre products are listed, mostly bulk shredded bags: Organic Swiss (200 g), Organic Shredded Old Cheddar (2 kg), Organic Mozza-Cheddar Shredded Blend (200 g), Organic Shredded Partially Skimmed Mozzarella (1 kg), Organic Shredded Swiss (1 kg) and Organic Shredded Medium Cheddar (2 kg). The twelfth is Life Smart Organic Part Skim Mozzarella (200 g).
Best-before dates on the affected products run from 2026 DE 04 on the 2 kg shredded old cheddar out to 2027 JL 30 on the five Farm Boy items and the 200 g L’Ancêtre Swiss. The agency classified it as Class 1 under identification number RA-82779, its most serious tier.
CFIA testing triggered the recall, and the notice said there have been no reported illnesses associated with eating the products. The agency’s food safety investigation is ongoing and more products could be added. Questions are going to the CFIA at 1-613-773-2342 or to Fromagerie L’Ancêtre at info@fromagerieancetre.com.
The Call If You Have Any Of It
Do not try to play lot detective with the Graziers cheese. The company pulled every product in distribution precisely because nobody could point to a single production run, the date codes attached to the enforcement listing number in the hundreds, and a lot of those packages have already been opened, rewrapped and buried behind the eggs. A wrapper that says Graziers is enough. Trash it or take it back for your money.
The shredded bags in the Canadian recall deserve the same lack of sentiment. Bulk 1 kg and 2 kg bags get tossed in the freezer and forgotten, and a frozen bag outlives the news cycle by months. The Farm Boy and L’Ancêtre Swiss blocks share a lot code in the notice, so read the brand name and the size, not just the code.
Both agencies say their investigations are still open, which means the product lists as published are the floor and not the ceiling. If you are standing at the cheese case wondering whether to risk it, the answer is easy. There is a lot of cheese in that case, and none of the recalled names are the only cheddar in America.
