TK Maxx and Lidl are recalling products from their neighbouring Putney High Street stores this month, and the manufacturer behind one of them has now had two asbestos-contaminated products pulled from shelves in the space of three months.
TK Maxx is recalling the Galt Sand Stickers Craft Kit after the sand filling tested positive for a small quantity of asbestos. Next door, Lidl is recalling Food Festival Pretzel Bites over a genuinely minor slip: the mustard in the ingredients wasn’t printed in bold, as UK allergen law requires. Both notices went up this month, both due down in the autumn.
A second asbestos recall this year for James Galt
The Sand Stickers kit is made by James Galt Ltd, which recalled a different product, the Galt Nature Craft Kit, in April after yellow sand in that set also tested positive for asbestos. Two asbestos incidents in one year suggests something upstream in the company’s supply chain, not a single unlucky batch of sand.
It’s also bigger than one manufacturer. Regulators in at least a dozen countries have pulled more than 80 similar sand-based toys and craft kits since November 2025, according to Consumer Reports. The Australian competition regulator has said some of the contaminated sand traces back to a single quarry in China, which is either reassuringly specific or deeply unsettling, depending on your mood.
Why “low risk” still means a mandatory recall
Both James Galt recalls describe the health risk as low. That doesn’t make the notices optional. Asbestos has no legal safe limit in toys under the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011, so any detectable trace triggers a recall, no matter how small the amount. The Sand Stickers kit was sold at TK Maxx and Homesense for £3.99 (€5.99) between February 2023 and September 2024, item number 1005467, with six animal stickers and four bags of play sand that turned out to be a bit more eventful than intended.
Lidl’s problem is a different kind of risk, and a much smaller one. Food Festival Pretzel Bites, Honey, Mustard and Onion flavour, are perfectly safe to eat, mustard and all, for almost everyone. The issue is a font-weight technicality: the mustard wasn’t emphasised in bold on the back-of-pack ingredients, so someone with a mustard allergy skimming the label could easily miss it. You mustard be kidding, but the law doesn’t do exceptions for near misses.
What to do if you bought either
If you have the Sand Stickers kit and it’s still sealed, take it to any TK Maxx or Homesense for a refund. If it’s been opened, don’t just bin it: bag the sand in a heavy-duty plastic bag, tape it securely, and keep it away from children. If the sand has already been used, clean the area with wet cloths rather than sweeping or vacuuming, which can send dust into the air. The TK Maxx notice is on display until 14 October.
If you have a mustard allergy and bought the pretzels, don’t eat them, however tempting. Return the bag to any Lidl for a full refund. That notice comes down on 10 August.
The fourth recall on this stretch of high street
It’s not the first recall notice to appear in this window since April, when a different asbestos-contaminated toy turned up in the same TK Maxx. Most recently, a plastic spatula was pulled over a chemical linked to cancer. This is the fourth recall notice Putney.news has covered here in a little over three months, and the first time a second shop, standing right next to TK Maxx, has joined it.
