TECH FLASH
Ground beef recall hits Wyalusing, PA plant
Cargill Meat Solutions (Wyalusing, PA) recalled 29,339 pounds of fresh ground beef products that may be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis, according to USDA’s FSIS. The product subject to recall was sold wholesale and for further processing, and involves 14-lb. chub packages, packed three to a case.
The meat products were produced on May 25 and were shipped to distribution centers in Connecticut, Maine and New York for further distribution. These products were repackaged into consumer-sized packs and sold under different retail brand names.
FSIS became aware of the problem during the course of an ongoing CDC investigation of a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis involving 33 patients from seven states. Preliminary CDC data lists the seven affected states as Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia and Vermont.
Working in conjunction with the CDC, FSIS was able to link illnesses in five patient cases to the ground beef produced at the Wyalusing location based on epidemiologic and traceback investigations as well as in-store reviews. Illness onset dates ranged from June 6-13, 2012. Two of the five patients were hospitalized.
This is not the first recall for this facility. Tech Flash (Volume 6, No 17), published in September 2010, reported a Class 1 ground beef recall for the same facility of approximately 8,500 pounds of ground beef potentially contaminated with E. coli O26. Illness onset dates for this E. coli contamination ranged from June 24 through July 16, 2010.
In November 2007, Tech Flash (Volume 3, No. 11) reported a recall of one million pounds of ground beef from the Wyalusing facility for E. coli O157:H7. The ground beef was produced between October 8 and 11, 2007 and was distributed to retailers nationwide. See the Cargill recall notice.
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