Food Safety Update: Canadian Beef Recall Widens, U.S. Bans Some Imports

WASHINGTONUSDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) expanded its public health warning on Sept. 26 advising consumers not to eat boneless beef trim products imported from Canada because they may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.

The new alert comes on the heels of the revelation that random FSIS testing of XL Foods beef at the U.S. border confirmed positive for E. coli O157:H7 on Sept. 3. FSIS notified the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) of the results on Sept.4; however, it was a full 12 days before the initial recall was announced by both CFIA and  Edmonton-based XL Foods on Sept. 16.  On Sept. 13, FSIS notified CFIA that it had delisted XL Foods, Inc., from its export meat listthree days prior to the first recall.

The recalled beef products involve beef patties, bulk ground beef, meatloaf, sliders and meatballs sold under the brand names Calahoo Meats, Kirkland Signature, Safeway and Walmart. Since then, the recall has been expanded seven times to a total of 890,000 pounds of beef manufacturing trim and an unknown amount of boxed beef that were shipped to U.S. processors, FSIS said. The products subject to the Canadian recall were distributed to U.S. establishments in California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin where they may have been further processed into various products, such as ground beef or ground beef patties.

The Sept. 26 health warning was issued after FSIS discovered sub-primal materials (i.e., beef short ribs) produced on the same production dates as beef subject to recall in Canada were being used by a U.S. facility to manufacture other products, and that the beef short ribs were being trimmed in order for the trim to be used to make ground beef.

According FSIS, based on information provided by CFIA, beef from cattle slaughtered during the period associated with the recall was produced under insanitary conditions that resulted in a high event period (a period when the trim from carcasses exhibited an unusually high frequency of positive findings for the possible presence of E. coli O157:H7). Therefore, all products that are non-intact, such as trim and ground beef subject to the recall, as well as all cuts of beef that will be processed into non-intact product, are considered adulterated.

CFIA expanded the scope of the recall to include the production dates of Aug. 24, Aug. 27, Aug. 28, Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, 2012, and FSIS has determined that a slaughter date of Aug. 23, 2012 is common to all four production dates.

An updated recall list published Sept. 27 reveals XL Foods beef was distributed to Albertson's, Food4Less, Foods Co., Jay C, Kroger, Safeway, Sam's Club and Walmart retailers in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia.