Home Originals taco shell products sold in U.S. grocery stores nationwide. Tests performed by an independent laboratory found, in certain samples, the presence of a variety of corn that Kraft had not specified for the product and which is not approved by U.S. regulators for use in food, Kraft said. Kraft said at this point there appears to be no evidence of adverse health effects from the corn variety, known as StarLink. It was approved in the United States in 1998 for use only in animal feed because it contains a protein that might be an allergen.
Bt corn is spliced with a naturally occurring plant pesticide known as bacillus thuringiensis.
Taco Shells and Taco Bell Home Originals Taco Dinner containing 12 shells, sauce and seasoning. Consumers who have purchased the products should not eat them, and should return the packages to the store where they were purchased for a full refund, Kraft said. Kraft is licensed by Taco Bell to use the name on taco shells sold only in supermarkets. Sabritas buys corn flour for the product from Azteca Milling L.P., which processes the flour in its Plainview, Texas, mill, Kraft said. The specifications for the corn Azteca purchased for the taco shells were confined to several varieties of conventional yellow corn and did not include the StarLink corn, Kraft said.