School districts had large amounts of recalled beef
04/08 -- About 50.3 million pounds of the meat recalled in February by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had gone to child nutrition programs -- including the school lunch program -- and 19.6 million pounds were consumed, said Eric Steiner of the Food and Nutrition Service during a briefing with reporters.
The largest meat recall in history involved a total of more than 143 million pounds produced by the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., based in Chino, Calif.
About 20 percent of the ground beef purchased for the school lunch program over the past few years came from Hallmark/Westland, said Bill Sessions of the Agricultural Marketing Service.
USDA determined the beef was “unfit for human food because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection.” The company had failed to notify federal food inspectors about cattle that were too sick to stand up.
The Humane Society discovered the abuse of “downer” cattle during an undercover investigation. These animals are more likely to be infected with BSE, “mad cow disease,” although none of the animals from Hallmark/Westland were found to have had the disease.
School districts throughout the country had purchased ground beef from Hallmark/ Westland for use in hamburgers, tacos, spaghetti sauce and other items.
One such district, the Hardin County, Ky., school system, had been purchasing beef that had originated from Hallmark/Westland since August, and much of it has already been consumed, said Janey Thornton, director of child nutrition programs.
When the recall was announced, the district had about 160 to 170 cases -- about 3,000 pounds -- which was collected from schools and stored in a central freezer. The district is sending that meat, worth about $10,000, to a landfill where it will be destroyed.
At a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee March 4, Chair George Miller (D-Calif.) said the recall “raises very alarming questions about the USDA’s ability to monitor the safety of meat in this country, including meat that is being served to children in the national school lunch program. . . . It is unacceptable that the USDA so completely failed to do its job.”
Miller, along with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the subcommittee on agriculture appropriations, and other members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the safety of meat in the school lunch program.
Dora Rivas, director of child nutrition for the Dallas school district, testified during the hearing that USDA’s procedures made it difficult for schools to comply with the recall and communicate with the public.
While she said USDA has promised to reimburse districts for some of the costs of the recalled meat, it will not compensate districts for overtime pay or administrative expenses.
Eric Peterson, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Service notes that USDA standards for the school commodity system are more stringent that those for regular consumers or restaurants. But he adds, there have been many recalls affecting school food. Earlier this winter, for example, a recall of green beans tainted with botulism affected districts in a handful of states.
Reproduced with permission from
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