Jimmy Dean recalls more than 28,000 pounds of possibly tainted sausage links.

More than 28,000 pounds of Jimmy Dean sausage has been recalled over fears over metal tainting in meat distributed to 21 states, including Texas, the company said Tuesday, in a move to protect consumers from products that pose the greatest health risk under the Agriculture Department’s recall regulations.

Five consumer complaints of metal-infused sausage led the agency’s food safety office to trigger the alert, the USDA said, after the sausage left a Tennessee-based facility and was distributed across the country. No health impacts have been reported as of Tuesday, the agency said.

CTI Foods, the product distributor, began the recall of Jimmy Dean readyto-eat sausage links made from turkey and pork. The company did not return a request for comment.

The USDA assigned the recall a “Class I,” the most serious classification spectrum. Products recalled under that designation are health hazards that pose a “reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”

Jimmy Dean downplayed the recall of 2,845 packages as a “small amount” in a Monday release. Worth Sparkman, a company spokesman, said it represented one day’s worth of production in a single plant traced back to Aug. 4.

The company has advised retailers not to sell the products to consumers, although the USDA said it was concerned that the products are in freezers and may be overlooked. Sparkman said the USDA would publish a list of retailers that sold the tainted sausage.

Jimmy Dean has relied on outreach to retailers to keep the meat from consumers and media stories to reach potential consumers, Sparkman said.