According to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), as part of an ongoing investigation it has been discovered that meat processed by a California company may not be fit for consumption. A Northern California company has recalled over 8.7 million pounds of meat due to discovery that diseased and unhealthy animals might have been processed in absence of full federal inspection.
The voluminous pounds of meat amounts to a whole year’s worth of meat processed by Rancho Feeding Corp., which produced the recalled meat. The company also recalled more than 40,000 pounds of meat processed on Jan. 8, for failure to do complete inspection.
The effected meat was processed from Jan. 1, 2013, through Jan. 7 and then shipped to distributors and retail stores in various states including: California, Florida, Illinois and Texas. The meats that have been recalled include oxtail, liver, cheeks, tripe, veal bones, tongue and other beef carcasses. Boxes of the meat can be identified by an establishment number “EST. 527” inside the USDA mark of inspection. The boxes also bear case code numbers ending in either a “3” or “4”.
Currently there are no reported illnesses associated with the recalled meat, however due to the fact that the meat could have been frozen and in storage, a Class 1 recall was issued to avoid food borne illnesses that could cause serious illness and various other health consequences. A Class level 1 recall is the most serious, reserved for health hazards where a reasonable probability the use of a product will cause “serious, adverse consequences or death”.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) calculates that in the United States alone each year, there are approximately 76 million cases of food-borne illness. Of those 76 million cases of illness 325,000 result in hospitalization and 5,000 deaths. It is estimated that of those statistics 1/3rd of the deaths are attributable to food-borne illness originating from meat and poultry.