Cargill recalls beef products over Salmonella concerns

Cargill Beef, a business unit of US-based Cargill Meat Solutions, is recalling 29,339lbs of fresh ground beef products as they may be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

The products subject to the recall are 14lb chub packages of ‘Grnd Beef Fine 85/15’, bearing the establishment number ‘EST. 9400’ inside the USDA mark of inspection.

Produced at Cargill’s facility in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, on 25 May 2012, the products were shipped to distribution centres in Connecticut, Maine and New York for further distribution.

These products were then repackaged into consumer-size packages and were sold under different retail brand names.

Although the use-by date has passed and these products are not available for retail sale, FSIS and the company are concerned that some of these packages may be frozen in consumers’ freezers.

Cargill announced that it is working closely with consumers to ensure that the affected beef is retrieved.

The recall has been classified as Class I, which indicates a health hazard situation where there is a chance of serious, adverse health consequences or even death due to the consumption of the products.

According to FSIS, it identified the problem during an ongoing investigation of a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis, which led to 33 cases of illness in seven states in the US.

Working closely with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and public health partners, FSIS conducted epidemiologic and traceback investigations, as well as in-store reviews, and was able to trace five cases of illness to the ground beef products produced at the Cargill’s Pennsylvania facility.

Consumption of food contaminated with Salmonella can lead to Salmonellosis, a common bacterial foodborne illnesses which may result in serious deadly infections especially in young children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.

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Image: FSIS and Cargill fear that the recalled product, possibly contaminated by Salmonella Enteritidis, may be frozen in consumers’ freezers. Photo: Cargill.