Category: E. coli O157:H7

Recall Roundup: January 5, 2011

Here is today’s list of food safety recalls, product withdrawals, allergy alerts and miscellaneous compliance issues. The live links will take you directly to the official recall notices and company news releases that contain detailed information for each recall and alert.

United States
  • Food Safety Recall: USDA releases retail distribution list for organic ground beef products recalled by First Class Foods, Inc. due to E. coli O157:H7 contamination.
  • Over-The-Counter Product Safety Recall: Triad Group (Hartland, WI) recalls all lots of Alcohol Prep Pads, Alcohol Swabs and Alcohol SwabSticks due to concerns about contamination with Bacillus cereus. The recalled covers both Sterile-marked and non-sterile products manufactured by Triad Group and marketed under the following private label brands: Cardinal Health, PSS Select, VersaPro, Boca/Ultilet, Moore Medical, Walgreens, CVS and Conzellin. Products covered by this recall were distributed in the USA, Canada and Europe.
Canada
  • Food Safety Recall: Wal-Mart Canada Corp. recalls Sprouters Northwest brand Deli Sprouts (5 oz.; UPC 0 33383 70267 4; sold up to and including January 3, 2011) because the product may be contaminated with Salmonella. The recalled sprouts were sold in Wal-Mart stores in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Several illnesses have been linked to consumption of the sprouts in the USA, but there have been no associated illnesses reported in Canada.
  • Over-The-Counter Product Safety Recall: Triad Group (Hartland, WI) recalls all lots of Alcohol Prep Pads, Alcohol Swabs and Alcohol SwabSticks due to concerns about contamination with Bacillus cereus. The recalled covers both Sterile-marked and non-sterile products manufactured by Triad Group and marketed under the following private label brands: Cardinal Health, PSS Select, VersaPro, Boca/Ultilet, Moore Medical, Walgreens, CVS and Conzellin. Products covered by this recall were distributed in the USA, Canada and Europe.
Europe
  • Allergy Alert (France): Auchan recalls Auchan pork spring rolls and chicken spring rolls (Nems au Porc – Nems au Poulet; Best before 12 janvier 2011) because the product may contain undeclared shrimp, fish and crab meat.
  • Allergy Alert (UK): Denar Ltd. recalls Denar golden jumbo raisins (200g; Best before 31 January 2012) and Denar dried apricots (200g; Best before 30 October 2011), because the products contain undeclared sulphur dioxide.
  • Food Safety Recall (Denmark): Dalby Møkke A/S recalls organic oatmeal (Best before 29-11-2011) because the product may contain the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol. Recalled products were sold under the following brands: Dalby Mill, Best, First Price, Gammelby Mill, and Dawn.
  • Food Safety Withdrawal (UK): Wm. Morrison Supermarkets plc recalls all date codes of Morrisons Unsalted Pistachio Nuts in Shell, 280g because one batch of the nuts was found to contain aflatoxins at levels higher than the regulatory limits.
  • Over-The-Counter Product Safety Recall: Triad Group (Hartland, WI) recalls all lots of Alcohol Prep Pads, Alcohol Swabs and Alcohol SwabSticks due to concerns about contamination with Bacillus cereus. The recalled covers both Sterile-marked and non-sterile products manufactured by Triad Group and marketed under the following private label brands: Cardinal Health, PSS Select, VersaPro, Boca/Ultilet, Moore Medical, Walgreens, CVS and Conzellin. Products covered by this recall were distributed in the USA, Canada and Europe.
  • Food Safety Notification (EU #2011.0007): Foreign body (plum stone and peduncle) in low sweetened plum jam from Poland; distributed to the Czech Republic.
  • Food Safety Notification (EU #2011.0008): Mercury in frozen sliced blue shark (Prionace glauca) from Vietnam; distributed to Italy.
  • Food Safety Notification (EU #2011.0009): High content of DINP – di-isononyl phthalate (1.4 %) in lid of jars containing roasted red peppers from Turkey; distributed to Slovenia.
  • Food Safety Notification (EU #2011.0010): High content of lead in fruit yoghurt dessert for infants from the Czech Republic; distributed to Poland.

Australia and New Zealand

  • Allergy Alert (Australia): Coles recalls all date codes of Coles Frozen Crumbed Fish Fillets Lemon (1kg and 425g packs), because the product may contain undeclared peanuts.
Some supermarket chains post recall notices on their web sites for the convenience of customers. To see whether a recalled food was carried by your favorite supermarket, follow the live link to the supermarket’s recall web site.
*The Kroger umbrella encompasses numerous supermarket, marketplace and convenience store chains, listed on the Kroger corporate home page.

Guest Blog: Why Walmart Has It Right

The following Guest Blog first appeared on Safety Zone, a regular blog feature on the Meatingplace.com site, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author, Dr. James Marsden.

Why Walmart Has It Right

I should start by saying that I do not work for Walmart as a consultant, advisor or in any other way. It is not my place to defend the company or its policies. However, I believe that last week Walmart took a courageous position to improve food safety for its customers – one that will eventually improve food safety for all consumers.

What they are requiring

The action taken by Walmart was to require that its beef suppliers meet performance standards designed to reduce the risk of pathogen contamination. Specifically, Walmart will require its beef slaughter suppliers to implement an approved intervention or a combination of interventions between post-hide removal and final trim production that will consistently produce, at a minimum, an initial cumulative 3-log reduction of enteric pathogens by June 2011. Thereafter, they are requesting a further reduction goal to achieve a total cumulative 5-log reduction between post-hide removal and final trim production by June 2012. All intervention steps must be scientifically validated. In addition, interventions must not require a label declaration or have a negative effect on product quality and shelf life and must be accepted by consumers. For ground beef suppliers that are not vertically integrated and do not have slaughter house control, Walmart will require an approved intervention or a combination of interventions that will consistently produce, at a minimum, a 2-log reduction of enteric pathogens on raw trim used for grinding. Again, the intervention process or intervention steps must be scientifically validated. Processing suppliers must be in compliance with this new process control standard by June 2011.

Why I agree

The move was supported by at least one major meatpacker – Tyson Fresh Meat Co., as well as consumer groups and academicians, including myself. News reports about the Beef Safety initiative, including those posted on Meatingplace elicited comments that expressed skepticism and doubt about Walmart’s motives and the need for new requirements. Here are my thoughts on the subject:

  1. The performance standards are designed to assure that all beef slaughter plants and processing plants utilize effective, validated interventions. Most of Walmart’s suppliers and most plants in the U.S. already have these interventions in place. I agree with Jim Dickson at Iowa State University who believes that the initiative is more about proving efficacy than it is about implementing new interventions. (See: Meatingplace story on this.)
  2. Before making the decision to implement the new performance standards, Walmart determined that suppliers that already have the required interventions in place are price competitive.
  3. Unfortunately, there are still beef slaughter plants and processors that either have not implemented effective interventions, or do not have supporting documentation to show that they are effective. Walmart is allowing more than a year for these companies to implement effective, validated interventions.
  4. In the manufacture of ground beef, product from multiple processors is often co-mingled. As a result, there may be an increased risk of contamination when beef from plants with inadequate interventions is utilized.
  5. Retailers like Walmart have no way of knowing if the beef they purchase for their customers was processed using effective interventions or not. When foodborne illness cases and recalls occur, they are still held accountable. In order to reduce the risk of these occurrences, retailers have the right to insist that their suppliers use the most effective interventions available and scientifically document their effectiveness in controlling pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella.
  6. It is worth noting that Walmart’s requirement for scientific validation of interventions is consistent with the in-plant validation requirements that were recently proposed by USDA-FSIS.

The bottom line is that it is time for all beef slaughter and processing plants to implement food safety systems for controlling E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. Most have already done so and as a result, beef products are safer now than at any time in history. If effective systems were universally applied, the incidence of pathogen contamination and foodborne disease cases and outbreaks associated with beef products could be further reduced. These are the real objectives of the Walmart Beef Safety initiative. Walmart deserves a lot of credit for taking a position that is long overdue.

About Jim Marsden: Dr. James L. Marsden is Regent’s Distinguished Professor of Food Safety and Security at Kansas State University, and the senior science advisor for the North American Meat Processors Association. He is the past president of the American Meat Institute Foundation in Washington, DC and a graduate of Oklahoma State University.

Food Safety And Good Corporate Citizenship

Bill Marler wrote yesterday evening (July 5, 2008):

“Frankly, I think the grocery stores – especially the big box types – need to take a more active role in seeing that plants like this perform – that is – they do not produce meat products contaminated with E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, etc. Perhaps stores should be less concerned about sales and more concerned with safety.”

Bill’s statement reminded me of an experience I had back in the mid-1990’s, when I was Research Director of QA Life Sciences, a company that developed and supplied rapid test systems to the food industry. One of our customers was a supermarket chain (not one of the Kroger’s group of companies).

My contact at Company X was the QA Manager (“Q”), an old-timer who felt a responsibility for the safety of the foods his employer sold to consumers. He was especially concerned about the beef and trimmings that Company X was purchasing for grinding, and he decided to put pressure on the company’s meat suppliers to clean up, or risk losing Company X’s business.

Q adopted our rapid test, which produced simultaneous counts of total E. coli and E. coli O157 within 24 hours. He could then determine the “H7” part of the E. coli O157:H7 within an additional 24 hours. After receiving grudging corporate management support for his plan, Q contacted Company X’s beef suppliers and proposed that they meet specific standards for total E. coli and for E. coli O157:H7.

Q was ahead of his time. USDA had recently (October 1994) named E. coli O157:H7 as an adulterant in ground beef, but not in beef destined for grinding. He met stiff resistance from several of the company’s suppliers, especially for his E. coli O157:H7 proposal. Eventually, he was able to negotiate standards based on total E. coli and E. coli O157.

Why the resistance to completing the H7 portion of the test? Company X’s suppliers did not want to know that their beef was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Were they advised of a positive E. coli O157:H7, they would have to act on the knowledge. But if the test was limited to E. coli O157, the beef suppliers could accept returned meat that failed Company X’s standards and resell it to a less demanding customer.

Q told me on several occasions that his program was successful. The overall safety and cleanliness of Company X’s ground beef was much improved.

The beef screening program stayed in force until Q retired. Company X dropped the program soon afterward.