California Meat Processor Recalls 8.7 Million Pounds of Beef
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service
(FSIS) has announced that Petaluma, California-based meat processor Rancho
Feeding Corp. has recalled nearly 9 million pounds of beef products—all of
the beef processed by the company from January 2013 through January 2014
and shipped to California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas.
According to FSIS, “the products are adulterated, because they are unsound, unwholesome or otherwise unfit for human food and must be removed from commerce”; the company purportedly processed “diseased and unsound animals and carried out these activities without the benefit or full benefit of federal inspections.” Although no reports of illness from consumption of these products have been submitted to FSIS, the recall was categorized as Class I, which means it presents “a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”
The company has reportedly been under scrutiny and last month recalled 40,000 pounds of meat products that similarly did not undergo a full inspection. According to a news source, FSIS indicated that the problems have been discovered as part of an ongoing investigation. See FSIS News Release, February 8, 2014; HuffingtonPost.com, February 9, 2014.
Issue 513
