Sedgwick: European Product Recalls Surged in First Half of 2025

Product recalls continue to rise throughout the E.U. and U.K., a new report shows.

Sedgwick’s latest European Product Safety and Recall Index Report shows 3,804 events reported from five industries so far in in 2025.

This marks the third consecutive quarter exceeding 3,800 events. At the half-way point of 2025, total recall events reached 7,729. That is a 10.2% increase from last year’s 7,011 events recorded.

The European report covers five categories: medical devices, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, automotive and consumer products.

The medical device sector had the biggest increase, rising 12.1% in the period. Pharmaceutical recalls were up 11.8% and food and beverage recalls rose 2.7%. Automotive recalls fell 41.5%, and consumer products were down 10.6%, the report shows.

The report also examines the regulatory landscape, and what changes and trends are expected for the remainder of 2025.

The E.U. and U.K. are using existing frameworks and introducing new requirements to address safety concerns. The U.K. established new post-market surveillance regulations for the medical device sector. These rules include Post-Market Surveillance regulations requiring device manufacturers to track the safety and performance of products on the U.K. market.

Key changes the surveillance regulations make are incident reporting provisions that mandate companies to report serious incidents related to side effects, requirements to report serious incidents sooner and beefed up data collection rules.

“European product recall activity shows no sign of slowing down,” stated Chris Occleshaw, international product recall consultant at Sedgwick. “With new obligations and additional product safety requirements being adopted, there will be even more potential for in-market events.”

The report calls out trade and competition as major themes across all industries, driven by tariff discussions and restrictions on E.U. purchasing of medical devices from China, as well as fines issued to automakers for collusion and a new competition agreement between the U.K. and EU. In light of those developments, many companies closely evaluated their trading partners and supply chains, according to the report.

The report shows software issues were the primary cause of medical device recalls, with software being cited in 168 recall in the second quarter. That was a 25.4% increase from the previous, and the highest quarterly total for software-related recalls in six years. Device failure was the second most listed recall cause, being identified in 122 events in the second quarter, up from being listed in 103 events in the previous quarter.