A smoked seafood trio isn’t a Tuesday purchase — it’s the thing you pick up for a weekend you’re looking forward to. That’s part of why this one is worth a second look: it’s not the kind of product you’d expect to be checking against a recall list. If you’ve bought one recently, it’s worth a quick look in your fridge, because New York State’s own lab testing just flagged one by name.
What the state found, and where
The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets issued an alert on October 1 after its own laboratory sampling detected Listeria monocytogenes in Starfish Seafood’s Cold Smoked Seafood Trio — an 8-ounce package combining salmon, halibut and trout. This wasn’t a company self-report; it was the state’s own testing that caught it, per the alert and Medical Daily’s reporting on it.
The affected lot is D139149161-153, with a best-before date of January 21, 2027. The product was distributed nationwide by Krasnyi Oktyabr USA Inc., based in Brooklyn, New York — so this isn’t a one-region concern even though a state agency caught it.
Why cold-smoked fish carries extra risk
This is worth understanding, because it’s specific to how this product is made. Cold-smoking flavors the fish without actually cooking it — there’s no heat-kill step the way there would be with hot-smoked or baked fish. That means any Listeria present going in stays present coming out, and refrigeration doesn’t stop it either: Listeria is one of the few foodborne bacteria that can keep multiplying at fridge temperatures.
Who’s most at risk: pregnant women, newborns, adults 65 and older, and anyone immunocompromised. For everyone else, Listeria infection usually means a rough few days of flu-like symptoms, but for those groups it can escalate to hospitalization.
What the state is telling shoppers to do
The department’s instruction is direct: discard the product. No refund process is specified in the state’s alert, which is a little different from a typical recall — this reads more like a safety warning than a retailer-managed return. If you have questions about the specific lot or want to confirm what you’re holding, the distributor can be reached directly at 718-858-6720.
Beyond tossing the product itself, it’s worth wiping down whatever shelf or drawer held it and washing any utensils or cutting boards that touched it before it’s out of your fridge. Listeria can transfer to other food through contact, which is part of why the “just throw it out” instruction comes with a cleanup footnote most people skip.
No illnesses reported — and why that matters here
As of this alert, no illnesses have been linked to this product. That’s genuinely good news, and it’s also exactly the point of this kind of lab-driven alert: the state found the contamination through routine sampling, before a cluster of sick people forced the issue. Catching it here is the system working, not a sign something worse already happened that hasn’t surfaced yet.
That distinction is worth holding onto the next time a recall headline feels alarming. A clean “no illnesses reported” line attached to a lab-caught contamination is the best version of a bad situation — it means you get to act before there’s a reason to worry about someone you know.
How this is different from a typical recall
Most of what lands in a recall roundup starts with a company or the FDA. This one started with a state lab, which is a reminder that your state’s own agriculture department can catch something a federal recall hasn’t gotten to yet — and that “nationwide distribution” doesn’t require a nationwide agency to be the one that finds the problem.
If you’re the kind of shopper who checks FDA.gov for recalls and assumes that covers it, this is worth filing away: state departments run their own testing, and their alerts carry the same weight even when they don’t come with the familiar federal recall language attached.
What to actually check in your fridge right now
Look for: an 8-ounce Starfish Seafood Cold Smoked Seafood Trio — salmon, halibut, trout — with lot number D139149161-153 and a best-before date of January 21, 2027. If that’s what’s in your fridge, it goes in the trash, not the brunch board.
If what you have doesn’t match that lot number, you’re almost certainly fine — this alert is specific to that one lot, not the product line generally. The specificity is what makes this manageable: you’re checking one number against one package, not swearing off smoked fish indefinitely.
The smaller point behind this one
None of this means you need to start treating every specialty item in your fridge as suspect. You bought a nice thing for a nice occasion, and the problem is on the production side, not a reflection of your judgment at the seafood counter.
If what’s in your fridge doesn’t match that lot number, you’re done with this one — that’s the whole advantage of a specific alert over a vague warning. If it does match, it goes in the trash, the shelf gets a wipe-down, and that’s the end of it too.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Womens Overview editors prior to publication.