Food Poisoning Law Blog

In late September Topps Meat Company recalled almost 22 million pounds of frozen hamburger patties that had been produced over a one-year period due to possible contamination with E. coli O157:H7. According to Dr. Kenneth Petersen, USDA-FSIS Assistant Administrator, Office of Field Operations, FSIS has “nailed down” the facts and believes the contamination was a product of inadequate testing, unsafe grinding procedures, and inadequate training of FSIS meat inspectors:

• Topps cut back on the testing of meat for E. coli O157:H7. Two years ago, before cutting back on testing, Topps was only receiving beef parts for processing that had tested negative for E. coli O157:H7. In addition, Topps was doing monthly testing of incoming product as a separate check.
• Topps began grinding product that had tested negative for E. coli O157:H7 with product that was not tested. According to Dr. Peterson, “And so that doesn't mean that product that wasn't tested wasn't negative, but it means they don't know the status of it and so, over time, it introduces the opportunity certainly for contamination to go into their product. And when that kind of thing happens, we're going to have significant questions about obviously what they're doing. But that's the kind of situation that would lead you to have a one-year recall.”
• FSIS inspectors were at the plant one or two hours a day, but did not cite the company for inadequate testing or unsafe grinding procedures. According to Dr. Petersen, “Did we here in headquarters sufficiently communicate to those inspectors that, here are the kind of things you should be looking for when you look at these programs? You know, when a plant says, we have these controls in place, what kind of documentation exactly should they be looking at?  And so in relooking at our training, we're giving them better clarity on what they should exactly be looking for so that these things don't get missed.”