A spokeswoman for Applebee’s restaurants has confirmed to Nation’s Restaurant News that the National Steak and Poultry (NSP) company’s E. coli steak recall included Applebee’s, a chain with more than 2000 restaurants.
This is what Applebee’s spokeswoman Nancy Mays told the magazine: “As a customer of NSP we took immediate action when learning of this recall. Any product that had potential to be affected was removed from restaurants.”
Olive Garden restaurants, owned by Darden, also is on the record as being a customer affected by the steak E. coli recall that was first announced on December 24th as primarily affecting only three chains: Moe’s Southwest Grill, Carino’s Italian and 54th Street Grill and Bar restaurants. The amount of boneless sirloin steak, sirloin tips, medallions, beef trim and other products recalled totaled 248,000 pounds.
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said the problem was discovered in an investigation of anE. coli O157:H7 outbreak that was infecting restaurant diners in multiple states. The latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is that 21 confirmed illnesses have occurred in 16 states, including nine patients who required hospitalization and at least one who contracted life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). No deaths have been reported.
The greater food safety community in the United States has been frustrated with the lack of disclosure over which restaurant chains — whether it be Applebee’s, Olive Garden or what not — were involved in this outbreak. The manufacturer was the only initial source of information about which chains were involved as recipients of recalled meat and that information has proven incomplete because the company’s official E. coli steak recall omitted Applebee’s and Olive Garden.
When products contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 and other dangerous human pathogens are sold to grocery stores — for instance — the USDA publishes a comprehensive list of stores and retail chains known to have received recalled items. But in the case of restaurants, there are regulations that prohibit the government from getting involved in identification — not even to disclose which chains are involved.
National food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker said this prohibition must be lifted to infuse greater transparency into the supply chain that we all rely on for our nutrition. “People have a right to know if the steak they ate at a restaurant was potentially laced with bacteria that could make them seriously ill or even kill them,” said Pritzker, whose firm was the first organization in the country to announce that health investigators were probing a restaurant E. coli outbreak associated with mechanically tenderized steak.
CDC spokeswoman Arleen Purcell-Pharr told reporter Alan Liddle of Nation’s Restaurant News that the outbreak appears to have peaked in November, with a few more onsets of illness occurring in December. She said the onset dates have ranged from Oct. 3 to Dec. 14.
According to the CDC, the states in which E. coli cases have been confirmed are California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Washington.
