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Nebraska Beef Recall - E Coli

Mike

Well-known member
Nebraska Beef recalls about 532,000 pounds of beef
23 hours ago

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Beef Ltd. is recalling nearly 532,000 pounds of ground beef produced in the last two months because the meat has been linked to an outbreak of E. coli illnesses.

The federal government said late Monday that some of the Omaha-based company's beef was sold by grocer Kroger Co., and investigators traced the meat to Nebraska Beef after 35 people in Ohio and Michigan became ill. Kroger already recalled beef it sold in those states.

Much of the beef that Nebraska Beef is recalling was sold to wholesalers or other processing companies, so it may be difficult for consumers to determine if they have any of the beef.

Details about the recalls are available at the USDA site, http://www.fsis.usda.gov.

On the Net:
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service: http://www.fsis.usda.gov
 

Mike

Well-known member
Packers are killing beef demand........................

one E-Coli recall at a time. :roll: :roll: :roll:
 

PORKER

Well-known member
What!!! No TRACEBACK? OVER a HALF MILLION POUNDS

Where are the normal business record keeping documents that will be needed to prove origin and ecoli meat for an audit to do the traceback to wholesalers and processors back to Nebraska Beef Ltd ?

Supermarkets across the country are pulling from their shelves more than 530,000 pounds of beef that may be contaminated with E. coli in the wake of an Agriculture Department warning that the beef supplied by a Nebraska company may be responsible for at least 40 illnesses.

The company, Nebraska Beef Ltd. of Omaha, recalled the beef produced since May after some of its products, sold by the Kroger Company with sell-by dates of May 21 to July 5, was linked to reports of illnesses in Ohio and Michigan, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said on Tuesday.

In addition to Michigan, Nebraska Beef reported some of the contaminated products were distributed in Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. Other beef products were reportedly sent to Colorado and Texas for further processing, although it was not immediately clear whether any contaminated beef was sold in the other states.

Nonetheless, some Ralphs supermarkets — a grocery chain owned by Kroger — pulled the ground beef from its stores in Southern California in response to the recall,
The Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday.

The legal counsel for Nebraska Beef was not immediately available for comment.

The Agriculture Department has labeled the recall Class I, which carries a high health risk. More cases are likely because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that for every incident of E. coli that is reported, 20 go unreported.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Fred Meyer, QFC pull potentially tainted ground beef
by Laura Gunderson, The Oregonian Thursday July 03, 2008, 9:15 AM
Just days before the hamburger's starring role in Fourth of July barbecues, a Nebraska slaughterhouse has recalled more than a half-million pounds of beef potentially tainted with E. coli.

On Wednesday, the recall prompted The Kroger Co. . to sanitize processing facilities and empty shelves at stores in 20 states, including Fred Meyer and QFC stores in Oregon and Washington. Several other major grocery chains operating in the area were unaffected.


» Kroger's recall Web page

Nebraska Beef Ltd. voluntarily recalled 531,707 pounds of beef -- some sold by Fred Meyer stores with sell-by dates of May 21 to July 5 -- linked to 40 confirmed illnesses in Michigan and Ohio, said Roger Sockman, spokesman for U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

No deaths have been reported from the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. But 12 people in Ohio and nine in Michigan have been hospitalized, Sockman said.

Recall details

Fred Meyer stores: All ground beef packaged in Styrofoam as well as ground beef sold at butcher counters with sell-by dates of May 21 to July 5 and ground beef sold under the Private Selection Natural label sold in 16-ounce packages with sell-by dates of July 11 to July 21.

• QFC stores: Ground beef sold under the QFC label with sell-by dates of May 21 to July 5, including 20 percent lean ground beef (bar codes 241659 and 241661), 15 percent extra lean ground beef (271665 and 271670) and 7 percent lean ground beef (241671 and 241676); Laura's Lean ground beef (231677); Chef's Express products, including meatballs (291196), meatloaf (291091), meatloaf with spinach (291297), stuffed peppers (291119) and beef mushroom burgers (291306).


» More information

No illnesses have been detected in Oregon.

USDA inspectors discovered E. coli in samples from Kroger stores and, with state health departments' help, traced back sickened patients' samples to Nebraska Beef. The agency categorized the recall as Class 1 for its high health risk.

A lawyer representing Nebraska Beef did not return repeated calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Nebraska Beef, which recalled meat it handled on five dates between May 16 and June 24, said in a brief statement Tuesday that it was not the sole supplier of the recalled product and its meat had been further processed or handled after leaving the company's control.

Cincinnati-based Kroger pulled ground beef sold at butcher counters, in Styrofoam containers or under the Private Selection Natural label. While sister chain QFC doesn't carry Nebraska Beef, it withdrew some other ground beef that could have been contaminated during processing, spokeswoman Kristin Maas said.

Fred Meyer expected to stock ground beef from two other suppliers by Wednesday afternoon, spokeswoman Melinda Merrill said. The company's Private Selection Organic beef, frozen beef patties and beef sold in tubes are considered safe, she said.

In a statement issued with the recall, Nebraska Beef officials wrote, "Since inception in 1995, the company has processed over 10 billion pounds of product without a confirmed customer illness."

But a Seattle lawyer isn't swayed.

Bill Marler, whose firm specializes in food-poisoning cases, sued Kroger and Nebraska Beef this week on behalf of a consumer who he said tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 after eating ground beef sold at a Kroger store in Dublin, Ohio.



Marler also is suing Nebraska Beef over a 2006 E. coli outbreak after a church potluck in Minnesota that killed a 73-year-old woman and sickened 16 other people. In that case, Marler said, he found Nebraska Beef had detected trimmings, such as fat and bone, contaminated with E. coli. The trimmings were tossed, Marler said, but not the actual meat that had been distributed. The meat, Marler said, was later genetically matched to some of the sick churchgoers' stools.

The company, in turn, sued its distributors and the church, Salem Lutheran of Longville, Minn. The company's legal team had the church's pastor give a deposition last week, Marler said.

In the past, Nebraska Beef's representatives have pointed out that the church women's auxiliary may have introduced contamination as they molded meatballs for a monthly fundraiser.

Marler said it would be uncommon for a slaughterhouse to perform an unnecessary recall.

"If they didn't sicken people," he said, referring to Nebraska Beef's statement earlier this week, "why would they voluntarily withdraw the meat?"

Nebraska Beef successfully sued the USDA in January 2003 to block the federal agency from shutting down one of its plants after the agency said it found E. coli-contaminated meat at a company subsidiary. The agency argued that serious food-safety violations warranted closure of the plant, which it said had a documented history of unsanitary conditions and violations.

Nebraska Beef argued that a closure could cost it $2.7 million a day and 1,100 jobs and drive the company out of business.

A federal judge granted Nebraska Beef a restraining order and a few weeks later the company agreed to a settlement with the agency that included additional food-safety monitoring. Soon after, the USDA dinged the company with nearly 60 noncompliance reports.

In May 2007, Nebraska Beef sued the agency -- and nine of its employees -- to argue that the inspectors had unfairly targeted its plant. The case was later dismissed.
-- Laura Gunderson
[email protected]
 

PPRM

Well-known member
Thoroughly cook all of your Ground Beef...No Rare!

We have been raising and selling our Beef Direct from the farm...We send it to a USDA Inspected Plant that is small and does one animal at a time. No Huge Batch mixing or mixing in of dated product. WE have never had an incident and the plant we use has never had a recall....All that being said. WE THOROUGHLY COOK ALL GROUND BEFF....

PPRM
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Latest NewsBeef Recall Is Expanded


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 4, 2008
Nebraska Beef Ltd. is expanding a recall announced this week to include all 5.3 million pounds of meat produced for ground beef from May 16 to June 26.

The company’s products have been linked to an outbreak of E. coli affecting 40 people in Michigan and Ohio. Some products were sold by Kroger, which has recalled ground beef products in more than 20 states because the meat may have been contaminated.

The company said Monday that beef involved in the original recall went to Nebraska, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. Thursday’s release did not specify whether the beef now being recalled went to additional states.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
SEATTLE, Aug 06, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- In just a year and a half, the American meat industry has experienced a whiplash of beef recalls. 40 million pounds of meat tainted with highly toxic E. coli O157:H7 has been publicly recalled, up by a staggering factor of two hundred from the 2006 amount of only 181,900 pounds.
"This is beyond the 'wheels coming off' of the meat supply system," said food borne illness attorney William Marler. "It's the entire train in a tangled heap. And the people caught in the train wreck are you and me and all of our neighbors. When reports say that there is a one in 400 chance that the package of ground beef you pick up at the supermarket will be tainted with a lethal bacterium, the food safety system is no longer functioning, and immediate, radical steps must be taken."
In more than thirty recalls ranging from a few hundred to millions of pounds, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has deemed E. coli contaminated meat a class I (one) health hazard to consumers. (A class I recall involves a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death.)
"There are many theories as to why there has been such an unprecedented jump in E. coli," said Marler. "It could be regulatory complacency, better reporting, or immigration sweeps that have left slaughterhouses empty of skilled workers. Global warming may be spreading fecal dust. High oil prices may have led to an E. coli-producing diet for cattle. The microbe itself may even be evolving to elude capture. Another possibility is that the higher costs of slaughterhouse inputs (beef cattle) have collided with retailer's low price pressures on outputs (hamburger) from those same slaughterhouses. These ideas need investigation and research, so that real change can begin."
To advance that change, Marler reached out to the food safety community and asked for ideas from experts, scientists, regulators, and food agency brass. He distilled the volumes of submitted suggestions into ten action items (full text can be found here):
-- Improve surveillance and reporting of bacterial and viral diseases.
-- Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants and grocery stores.
-- Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail, and wholesale food outlets.
-- Increase food inspections.
-- Reorganize federal, state, and local food safety agencies to increase cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts.
-- Establish tax credits for companies with good food safety records, and greater legal consequences for sickening or killing customers with tainted food.
-- Use our technology to make food more traceable.
-- Promote university research.
-- Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness.
-- Provide Presidential leadership on a topic that impacts every single one of us.
"There are a lot of very smart, very dedicated professionals in the food safety community," Marler concluded. "They have spent their careers working toward a better food supply, and that collective knowledge is available to design and implement change. We need our leaders to get on board, and get the food safety train back on track."
BACKGROUND: Marler Clark has represented thousands of victims of foodborne illness outbreaks since 1993. The firm's attorneys have litigated high-profile food poisoning cases against such companies as ConAgra, Wendy's, Chili's, Chi-Chi's, and Jack in the Box. Marler Clark currently represents thousands of victims of outbreaks traced to ground beef, peppers, pot pies, spinach, and peanut butter, as well as other foods. For further information contact Mary Siceloff at [email protected] or (206) 719-4705, or visit www.MarlerClark.com.
SOURCE: Marler Clark
Marler Clark
Mary Siceloff, 206-719-4705
[email protected]
 
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