"e coli" news and stories

Yup, another food recall because of possible E coli contamination.

Orval Kent Foods has recalled 23,000 pounds of its Amish Macaroni Salad. The packages being recalled include five pound containers with the Orval Kent Amish name (June 12 expiration date) and one, two, and five pound containers sold under the brand name of Yoder's (June 7 expiration date). The salad was sold in nine states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey (sorry, can't find any info on what the other states are).

There are no reports of any sickness yet, but the company doesn't want to take any chances so they have issued the recall.

[via Google News]

Some thieves got away with a bounty of beef -- 14,800 pounds of it, to be exact. But who gets the last laugh? The beef may have been contaminated with E.Coli, so the thieves didn't get much right?

Wrong.

Timothy Biela, Chief Food Safety and Quality Assurance Officer for the company that produced the beef, says they are concerned, not for consumers who purchase beef through normal channels, but "for the safety of those people who may be persuaded to buy beef products under questionable circumstances. We do not know how this product has been handled since it left our control. The stolen truck had only a limited supply of refrigeration fuel."

The beef was produced by Fort Worth-based American Fresh Foods. The company had set the trailer of beef away to eventually be removed from commercial sale. After the trailer was stolen, the USDA issued a public health alert and is now working with local and state law enforcement authorities to recover the stolen product and vehicle.

Source

Earlier this week we reported that United Food Group had recalled 75,000 pounds of beef in Colorado. Now the company has expanded the recall to include New Mexico.

And it's not a little increase in the amount being recalled. To that 75,000 pounds you can now add another 370,000 pounds of ground beef that's being recalled. The details are a bit confusing. At first it sounds like only Colorado and New Mexico are affected, but the beef was actually distributed to 11 states, in over a dozen supermarket chains. Consumers are urged to either return or throw away any meat they might have in their refrigerators.

TechNewsWorld has the complete details at the link above, including the stores/brands affected and a phone number to call if you have any questions.

Update: Now it's 5.7 million pounds.

There seems to have been a large number of food-related product recalls lately, and it has brought up some very valid questions. What happens when consumers don't hear about the recalls of products they have recently purchased, and equally frightening - what happens when the stores that sell these products aren't even aware? The FDA hopes to change that with a 6-month pilot program they are launching, designed to educate and assist consumers in identifying recalled products that could potentially pose significant health risks.

In the test program, they will mostly be focusing on the awareness of class I recalls - tainted products that could potentially cause serious adverse health consequences or death. These include foods contaminated with Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and more, plus those that contain food allergens ingredients such as nuts, soy, dairy, etc. In 2006 alone there were over 100 such recalls, though the average over the past 5 years is more like 188 - quite a significant number.

Source

Even though the ban on fresh bagged and loose leaf spinach from this past September's E. coli scare is long over, the shake that it put on consumer confidence in leafy greens is still there. Even now, consumers are avoiding greens, or buying them less frequently than they otherwise would. A study done at Rutgers found that part of the problem lies in the fact that spinach and other greens are considered to be healthy and that consumers almost feel betrayed by the fact that something wholesome could actually be harmful. This new suspicion is what is keeping sales down. In fact, only 2 out of 3 consumers contacted during the survey knew that the recall was over.

Farms and government agencies alike are looking for ways to mitigate the worries of consumers with oversight at both farm and national levels being discussed. Whether a new standard will be enough to boost consumer confidence to the point where the average diner doesn't look askance at a salad with baby spinach in it remains uncertain. Would it be enough for you?