California cannabis recall data: how it's maintained, what it covers, how to cite it.
This page documents the dataset behind the recall tracker, monthly reports, and the per-category, per-product, and per-licensee views on this site. Source: recalls.cannabis.ca.gov.
Coverage at a glance
Methodology
Source
All recall records on this site are sourced directly from the California Department of Cannabis Control's public recall portal at recalls.cannabis.ca.gov. Phenominal Consulting maintains an organized index of the portal — a structured database that records each recall the DCC publishes. New recalls are pulled in daily; a deeper recheck of the trailing 90 days runs weekly to catch DCC edits and rescissions on recently-published notices. The DCC portal is the authoritative source; if you find a discrepancy between this site and the DCC portal, the DCC portal is correct.
What's included
Every recall the DCC has published on its public portal, in either voluntary or mandatory form, across all California cannabis license types — distributors (C11), microbusinesses (C12), retailers (C10), manufacturers (CDPH/DCC), and others. Each record carries the DCC's verbatim reason text, the recall publication date, the recall type (mandatory or voluntary), the licensee(s) implicated in each role (legal business of record, packaged by, manufactured by, distributed by), the product name, the product type, and a link back to the original DCC notice.
Interpretive layer
Two analytical layers are applied on top of the verbatim DCC data:
- Category labels (contamination, label/data, mixed, other, packaging) are interpretive groupings applied by Phenominal Consulting based on the verbatim DCC reason language on each notice. They are not DCC's own classification. The mapping rules are consistent across the dataset and described in the per-category pages.
- Verbatim phrase tags ("misbranded," "inaccurate labeling," "cannabinoid inflation," "attractive to children," "invalid batch testing," "inaccurate ingredient," "obscured information panel") are extracted by exact-string matching against the DCC reason text. A single recall can carry multiple phrase tags.
Counting conventions
Recall counts reflect each separately-published recall notice on the DCC portal. The DCC publishes one notice per recalled SKU; a single enforcement action that pulls multiple SKUs from the same batch publishes as multiple notices on the public portal. Where a licensee summary on this site distinguishes between "enforcement events" and "recalled SKUs," that reflects this practice. Both counts are accurate; they measure different things.
How to cite
If you reference data from this site in editorial work, academic publication, legal filings, or any other context, please cite both this site and the DCC portal as the underlying source.
Suggested citation format
Phenominal Consulting. California Cannabis Recall Index. phenominal.io/recalls. Accessed May 20, 2026. Underlying data: California Department of Cannabis Control, Public Recall Portal, recalls.cannabis.ca.gov.
Replace the access date with the date you retrieved the data. Each per-recall page on this site links directly to the corresponding DCC notice for the authoritative version of any single recall.
Where to find what
The dataset is exposed through several surfaces depending on what you need:
- /recalls — full searchable index with filters for year, category, recall type, and license type. Refreshed daily.
- /reports — monthly summary reports (web page + PDF) covering each prior calendar month. Published on the 1st.
- Latest monthly report: California Cannabis Compliance Report — April 2026 (PDF)
- Per-category pages — every recall grouped by failure mode.
- Per-product-type pages — every recall grouped by DCC product type.
- Per-year overview pages — annual rollups with monthly histograms.
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Per-licensee history pages at
/recalls/licensee/{license_number}— every recall in which a given license number appears in any role.
Need a different cut of the data than what's published here? Phenominal Consulting can produce a scoped pull for editorial, academic, or legal use. Get in touch with a description of what you're researching.
Update cadence
The dataset on this site is maintained with the following cadence:
- Daily — new DCC recalls are pulled from the portal and added to the index.
- Weekly — the trailing 90 days of recalls are re-checked for DCC edits, rescissions, or reason-text updates.
- Monthly (1st of each month) — a structured monthly report is generated covering the prior calendar month, as both a web page and a downloadable PDF.
The DCC publishes recalls on its own schedule (typically Tuesday – Friday). Most weeks see 1-3 new recalls; enforcement waves can push that into the double digits. This site updates within 24 hours of each DCC publication.
About Phenominal Consulting
Phenominal Consulting is a Sacramento-based California cannabis distribution compliance practice. We work with Type 11 distributors on the operational gap between the lab, the ERP, the label generator, and the printer — the data flow that produces every printed cannabis product label and the recall surface the DCC most frequently cites.
Methodology questions or data-correction notices: brandon@phenominal.io.
If you operate a Type 11 distribution license
The data tells you which failure modes to plan against.
A 30-minute call to walk through your COA → ERP → label → printer chain — the data flow behind every recall in this index.