Beef recall hits Northeast states

Beef recall involves Hannaford and other retailers whose customers bought ground beef in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. So far, ground beef recall targets 85 percent lean beef sold in late May and the first half of June. 

|
Courtesy of Hannaford Supermarkets
As part of the beef recall, Hannaford Supermarkets is alerting consumers to return any 85 percent lean ground beef sold at its stores between May 29 and June 16. The chain operates in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.

A strain of salmonella linked in the past to poultry and eggs has for the first time force a beef recall that affects customers in at least five Northeast states.

Cargill Beef is recalling more than 29,300 pounds of ground beef that it says could be tainted with salmonella. With sell by dates no later than the mid-June, the suspect meat has not been on store shelves for some time. Nevertheless, Cargill and at least one regional grocery chain are warning consumers in case some of the product remains in freezers.

On Monday, Hannaford Supermarkets alerted consumers in its five-state region – Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont – to check their freezers and return all ground beef sold at its stores between May 29 and June 16 for a full refund. Cargill Beef says some of the suspect meat also went to food distributors, who repackage the ground beef for retail sale.

The product in question is 85 percent lean, fresh, ground beef, produced on May 25 at Cargill's Wyalusing, Pa., plant, and in its wholesale form carried the establishment number "EST. 9400" on the USDA mark of inspection. But since the product was repackaged, retailers may have used their own establishment number. So far, the only retailer named by US Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is Hannaford. If federal authorities release more names, it will be released here (PDF).

The problem was traced to the Cargill plant after federal and state authorities began investigating an outbreak of 33 cases of Salmonella Enteritidis in seven East Coast states. Eleven people were hospitalized. Seventeen people reported buying ground beef from Hannaford. Five of those cases were traced back to Cargill's Pennsylvania plant. So far, Cargill has linked the bacteria to a single day of production and the plant continues to operate.

But the investigation is continuing, says an FSIS spokesman. At least four different teams of FSIS officials are investigating the facility.

Until now, this strain of the bacteria has been associated with poultry and egg recalls, says Sarah Klein, staff attorney with the food safety program of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. There have been at least six instances of the strain detected in beef. But "it's the first time it has generated a recall."

The spread of Salmonella Enteritidis shouldn't force big food-safety changes in beef-processing plants. "I'm not surprised that it's gotten into other foods than just chicken and eggs," says Robert Buchanan, director of the Center for Food Safety and Security Systems at the University of Maryland in College Park. The particular strain doesn't matter so much, he adds. Beef plants "have to worry about the salmonella, period."

Cargill spokesman Mike Martin also doesn't expect big changes. "The food safety system we have in place is designed to address bacteria such as Salmonella and E.coli," he writes in an e-mail. "However, they are naturally and randomly occurring bacteria that exist throughout nature and can be elusive, despite our best efforts employing current technology."

The source of the salmonella is still unknown." We know it arrived with one or more animals," writes Mr. Martin. "Which animal(s) and how they got it remain the open questions."

This marks the second beef recall for Hannaford in less than eight months. On Dec. 15, 2011, the Scarborough, Maine, chain announced it was recalling ground beef contaminated with a different strain of salmonella. Hannaford eventually recovered more than 112,000 pounds of suspect beef, but federal investigators couldn't go further up the chain because the chain had limited records, the FSIS says.

CSPI is pushing the federal agency to require retailers to keep detailed records of the source of all the beef they grind – something some retailers already do, Ms. Klein says.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Beef recall hits Northeast states
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0724/Beef-recall-hits-Northeast-states
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe