Cargill’s Northeast Ground Beef Recall Hits Hannaford

Cargill Meat Solutions’ recall of 29,339 pounds of fresh ground beef following a seven-state salmonella outbreak has mainly affected Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford Supermarkets, a division of Delhaize America in Salisbury, N.C. Cargill’s Wyalusing, Pa., facility is recalling packages of 85 percent lean ground beef produced on May 25 that were sold wholesale and for processing to retail. Thirty-three people have so far become ill in the outbreak.

As a result of the June 22 recall, Hannaford is alerting consumers in all markets to check their freezers for ground beef with use- or sell-by dates between May 29 and June 16. The 181-store grocer, which employs more than 26,000 associates in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont, will provide a full refund for any returned ground beef with those dates.

According to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the beef was repackaged for sale in consumer-sized packages and sold under various retail brand names at Northeast grocery stores in late May and early June. Although the products are no longer in stores, they could still be in consumers’ homes.

At the present time, the retail distribution list of where the beef was sold includes only Hannaford stores in the chain’s five-state footprint.

The FSIS said that salmonella cases have been reported in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia and Vermont. Leftover ground beef tested by the Vermont Department of Health was found positive for Salmonella Enteritidis.

Cargill is contacting retailers to ensure they know which ground beef products are affected, and recommends that consumers with any opened or unopened packages affected by the recalls return them to where they purchased them.

In August 2011, Cargill recalled more than 36 million pounds of ground turkey after a salmonella outbreak sickened 107 people in 31 states, killing one. A month later, the Wichita, Kan.-based company recalled another 185,000 pounds of ground turkey following a positive salmonella test.