10 million pounds of chicken and beef recalled nationwide due to Listeria concerns It was expanded by an additional 1.7 million pounds – With federal officials pointing to possible contamination of meat delivered to school cafeterias.
To make matters worse, the notice issued by the USDA late Tuesday — which brings the size of the recall to a staggering 11.7 million pounds — did not include a list of potentially affected schools.
“The school distribution list is not available at this time,” the USDA said in a statement on its website regarding the recall related to Oklahoma-based meatpacking giant Prospak.
A source close to the agency said that the expansion of the recall is not only due to the addition of schools. The USDA also expanded the recall production window to include meat produced as early as May 31, versus the previous start date of June 19, the source said. The window extends to October 8.
A USDA spokesman said the agency is compiling a list of school districts potentially affected.
The warning leaves parents in the dark as the USDA struggles to respond to a second large-scale Listeria recall in as many months.
“The USDA wants to be sure [even if] “It scares the public,” James Marsden, a food safety consultant and former advisor to the agency, told The Post.
The expansion of subpoenas to schools — and the lack of information — may be related to BrucePac, based in Durant, Okla., lacking good record-keeping, according to Marsden.
“A recall usually starts small, and then expands over and over because the company doesn’t have the records needed to prove that the product should be excluded from the recall,” Marsden said.
The school risk disclosure comes in the wake of confusion last week after the USDA revealed a £10 million recall without identifying the brands and retailers affected, instead publishing a list of product codes and abbreviations that would have been difficult if not impossible to… Shoppers need to understand it.
The USDA this week updated the list to clarify that products at risk include frozen dinners and fresh salads from Walmart, Target, Trader Joe’s and large grocery chains including Kroger and Publix, according to US regulators.
Food products that come out of a plant usually have barcodes on their packaging that are supposed to identify the line where the food was produced, the time, date and where it went next, experts said.
The BrucePac recall has not resulted in any known illnesses to date. But there may be illnesses in multiple states and health departments haven’t connected the epidemiological dots yet, said Bill Marler, a food safety attorney.
Listeria has an incubation period of three to 70 days and can cause miscarriage even if a pregnant woman has a mild case of Listeria, according to food safety experts.
In the case of BrucePac, consumers may have had some potentially contaminated products sitting in their refrigerators and freezers because many of the packaged foods were frozen dinners and prepared salads.
One comforting fact, Marsden noted, is that although Listeria can survive in frozen foods, the process of heating the meal will kill the bacteria in many cases.
Meanwhile, the USDA is conducting an internal investigation into its handling of Boar’s Head — which caused dozens of inspection report violations over two years — and the Office of Inspector General is investigating the agency as well, Boar’s Head confirmed Tuesday.
“The USDA is being very cautious,” Marsden said. “They are under a microscope and are under a lot of pressure to get the right result because of the pig’s head.”
More than seven million pounds of Boar’s Head product was pulled from stores in July after 10 people died and dozens were hospitalized due to listeria in deli meats.
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