During the first quarter of 2022, 14 recalls and public health alerts were issued for meat and poultry products, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS). As usual, most of the recalls, eight of them, were for misbranding or undeclared allergens. Bacterial contamination was next with two recalls and one public health alert. And there was one recall in each of the three categories lack of inspection, import violation, and foreign material.
Two of the product recalls and alerts for bacterial contamination were for Listeria and one was for E. coli O157:H7. Below is a summary of each of those recalls.
E. coli in Ground Beef Sold WinCo, Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons
On January 6, 2022, Interstate Meat Dist. Inc. of Clackamas, OR issued an E. coli recall for ground beef sold in 1-lb and 3-lb chubs sold at Walmart, Winco, the Kroger family of stores, and under the Signature Farms brand at Albertsons family of stores. The recall, which included 28,356 pounds of ground beef products, was issued one day after Consumer Reports published a story about the tests results of ground beef it had purchased.
All of the recalled meat, which was produced on December 20, 2021, has the establishment number “EST. 965” inside the USDA mark of inspection on the label.
Symptoms of an E. coli infection usually develop within one to three days of exposure and include abdominal cramps and diarrhea that is sometimes bloody. About 7 percent of patients with E. coli infections develop a complication called hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a form of kidney failure. Most often, HUS affects young children.
Listeria in Ready-to-Eat Chicken Salad
On January 28, 2022, USDA FSIS issued a public health alert for Simply Fresh ready-to-eat chicken salad products that may have been contaminated with Listeria. The agency stated that it did not request a recall because the products were no longer on the market by the time the risk of contamination was discovered.
But it’s important to note that symptoms of a Listeria infection can take as long as 70 days to develop. These symptoms include high fever, severe headache, stiff neck, other muscle aches, loss of balance, confusion, and convulsions. Among pregnant women, Listeria can cause miscarriage and stillbirth.
The Simply Fresh chicken salad products have the establishment number “EST. P47170” inside the USDA mark of inspection and were sold at three markets in Atlanta.
On March 4, 2022, Boyd Specialties, LLC, of Colton, CA issued a Listeria recall for beef jerky sold under dozens of brands names including Ranchview, Smokehouse, Humboldt, Durbin Farms, and more. The recall included a variety of flavors including garlic pepper, straight whiskey, carne asada, cracked black pepper, and more.
