Ground Beef E coli Detected by School Lunch Program
A screen for E. coli O157:H7 in raw hamburger and a similar screen for Salmonella used by the national school lunch program has led to changes in the way the USDA is treating a major supplier of ground beef.
In 2007, USDA exempted South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc. from routine testing for E. coli O157:H7 after the agency endorsed a process that the company said reduced the bacteria “to an undetectable level.” The process? Injecting beef with ammonia.
But a story last week by New York Times reporter Michael Moss disclosed that food safety protocols at the national school lunch program had found E. coli and Salmonella pathogens dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims about the effectiveness of the ammonia treatment. The lunch program operates within USDA and last year purchased 5.5 million pounds of processed beef products.
Since 2005,E. coli has been found 3 times and Salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated, the Times reported. The meat was caught before reaching lunchrooms.
In July, school lunch officials temporarily banned their hamburger makers from using meat from a Beef Products facility in Kansas because of Salmonella — the third suspension in three years, records obtained by reporter Moss show. Yet the facility remained approved by the USDA for other customers.
Presented by The Times with the school lunch test results, top USDA officials said they were not aware of what their colleagues in the lunch program had been finding for years. In response, the agriculture department said it was revoking Beef Products’ exemption from routine testing and conducting a review of the company’s operations and research.
Beef Products maintains that its ammonia process remains effective. It said it tests samples of each batch it ships to customers and has found E. coli in only 0.06 percent of the samples this year.
Tags: E. coli lawyer, ground beef e coli
