Still no beef fix a year after salmonella outbreak

One year after a recall of contaminated ground meat sold at Hannaford stores exposed blind spots in the nation’s food-safety chain, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has yet to move forward with a proposed rule to improve record-keeping and, in turn, better protect public health.

According to the Maine Sunday Telegram when a salmonella outbreak that sickened 20 people was traced to the supermarket chain in late 2011, Hannaford voluntarily improved its tracking procedures so it could better identify the point of origin of its beef and therefore the origin of any contamination.

But while the USDA said it expected to send a detailed proposal of its new rule requiring other grocers to do the same to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review last summer, that still hasn’t happened.

And no one from the USDA will say what has held up the process, or when the rule might move forward.

“I have to say, I’m extremely disappointed that the regulations haven’t been put into place yet,” said U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat representing the 1st District. She has served on the House Agriculture Committee for the past two years and hopes to continue.

After the recall, the Maine Sunday Telegram/Portland Press Herald investigated the problem and exposed the holes in the USDA’s system in a special report published in March.

Meanwhile, several people sickened in the salmonella outbreak are still seeking compensation from Hannaford.

“I just want the bills paid and the things to go away,” said Kenneth Koehler, 53, of Old Orchard Beach, who has racked up $8,000 in medical expenses since he was sickened more than a year ago.

He hasn’t eaten a hamburger since.

No one from the USDA, which was also tight-lipped during the recall investigation, would say when it might send the proposal to the White House.

Listeria in cantaloupe; seek and ye shall find; NC melons recalled in NY

A North Carolina farm is recalling 580 cases of cantaloupes that were sent to New York because they could be contaminated with listeria.

Burch Equipment announced the voluntary recall Saturday.

The farm says the whole Athena cantaloupes were shipped July 15. They have a red label with Burch Farms.

Anyone with one of the cantaloupes should destroy the melon.

The Hannaford Bros. Co. supermarket chain also recalled the same melons.

Hannaford Supermarkets operates 181 stores in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont.

Variable record-keeping, compliance; inconsistent enforcement; salmonella in Hanaford beef trim

The Portland Press Herald ran a two-part series on the Salmonella Typhimurium in ground beef outbreak linked to Hannaford grocery stores in Maine that sickened at least 20 people. Excerpts below:

On the night before Halloween, Danielle Wadsworth’s boyfriend made tacos for dinner at her home in Lewiston. A week later, she was hooked up to two intravenous drips at Central Maine Medical Center as doctors debated whether she needed a blood transfusion.

Wadsworth, an otherwise healthy 31-year-old woman, was one of 20 people known to have been infected with a rare antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella linked to ground beef sold at Hannaford stores in seven states last fall.

Severe stomach pain and near-constant diarrhea containing blood concerned Wadsworth enough to seek medical treatment. She was hospitalized for three days and missed two weeks of work.

"I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemy," said Wadsworth, who’s pursuing a claim against Hannaford supermarkets.

Federal and state investigators traced the "genetic fingerprint" of the salmonella to ground beef sold at Hannaford, prompting the Scarborough-based grocery chain to pull 17,000 pounds of meat from its shelves on Dec. 15, 2011, in the first health-related recall of a store-brand product in its 129-year history.

Investigators were never able to identify the source — and possibly prevent more consumers from getting sick — because of Hannaford’s record keeping, even though it exceeded federal requirements. However, Hannaford’s records, like most retailers, still fell short of USDA recommendations.

The first hint at Hannaford that something was wrong came in mid-December, when four investigators from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service showed up at Hannaford’s South Portland and Schodack, N.Y., distribution centers and a handful of Hannaford stores.

Without telling the company why, they collected copies of inventory records and grinding logs, according to Mike Norton, Hannaford’s director of corporate communications. Hannaford employees were only told it was part of a foodborne illness investigation, one of 17 the agency conducted in 2011.

On the morning of Dec. 15, Norton said, Hannaford’s director of food safety, Larry Kohl, called company executives to a noon meeting at the corporate office on Pleasant Hill Road in Scarborough. Federal food inspectors, working with public health officials, had made a connection between Hannaford’s beef and a salmonella outbreak, he explained at the meeting. They’d hear more later that day, Kohl told the group.

The federal agents told company officials that a national database kept by the CDC had connected 14 people from seven states infected with the same strain of salmonella. Through interviews with the patients, public health officials found that 10 of them had eaten ground beef purchased at Hannaford. (The number of people known to have become sick later rose to 20, with 12 reporting having eaten Hannaford beef in the week before their symptoms appeared.)

Since the USDA doesn’t have the authority to require a recall, it was up to company officials to decide what to do. At that meeting, they decided to recall all store-brand ground beef with a sell-by date of Dec. 17 or earlier — meaning anything that was put on the shelves on Dec. 15 or before.

That set off a chain of events, starting with a message that appeared at 7:45 p.m. on monitors at store registers throughout the chain, telling clerks to alert on-duty managers to immediately check their computers for an important announcement.

Their inboxes contained a list of 10 varieties of ground beef carrying the Hannaford, Taste of Inspirations and Nature’s Place labels that had to be removed from the shelves within an hour.

Meanwhile, the corporate communications staff was putting together a press release that was sent out around 11 p.m. to 675 media outlets and later emailed to 70,000 customers.

The major roadblock in the USDA’s investigation, according to the agency, was the lack of information about ground beef that’s made from "trim," the scraps of meat left over when steaks and roasts are cut in stores from larger slabs.

About 20 percent of Hannaford’s ground beef packages are made from trim. The rest comes to the company in tubes of coarsely ground meat that’s ground again in stores and packaged.

Every morning, Hannaford meat clerks grind beef with varying percentages of fat, depending on what’s needed in their store that day. After every grind, they write down information about the meat on a paper log that’s kept near the grinder — fat content, the number of packages made and the sell-by date.

Clerks also write down the lot numbers for each box of tube meat but not the primal cuts whose trim was used for ground beef.

Complicating their ability to trace the source of any tainted beef, the stores didn’t clean equipment between grinding the tube meat and grinding the trim, which created an opportunity for cross-contamination, company officials admit.

The USDA called those practices "high-risk" and pointed to them as the reason its investigation was unsuccessful.

Yet, there are no USDA regulations that require retailers to clean equipment between grinding beef from different companies, or to keep grinding logs at all.

The USDA only requires that meat retailers keep track of what suppliers they use, how much meat they receive and when it arrives.

Still, grocers are aware that the agency recommends a much higher level of transparency, said Daniel Engeljohn, an assistant administrator for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

He said the Hannaford case proves that they’re choosing not to listen.

"We’ve publicly been making statements and developing best practices for retail since at least 2007," Engeljohn said. "It’s evidence that, industry-wide, there has not been good adoption of best practices."

Norton said halting the use of trim was a stopgap measure to simplify Hannaford’s grinding practices and records right away. He said stores resumed grinding trim in the first week of February, but they now clean equipment before and after those grinds and record the source of all cuts of meat used.

Those additional steps have tacked on between one and two hours of work for an employee in every meat department every day, said Norton.

Retailers’ approach to record keeping varies. Some keep detailed records, most don’t. But that could change under a proposed rule that would require retailers to keep detailed grinding logs.

A three-sentence summary of the proposed rule released last month said it would require retailers to record "all source materials" going into ground beef.

Norton said Hannaford hopes the USDA will start holding all meat retailers to that standard and supports the agency’s effort to upgrade record-keeping rules.

At Pat’s Meat Market in Portland, butcher Nick Vacchiano grinds meat every two hours using only trim from cuts of beef sourced from three suppliers in the western United States.

No beef is ground before it gets to the store, and no logs are kept of what goes into the grinder. Vacchiano, whose father owns the Stevens Avenue market, said the operation is so small, there’s no need for extensive records.

"We’re watching everything that goes on," he said.

Is USDA moving too slow in salmonella probe?

First the company plays the Pinto defense – we meet all government standards – and now the local paper lashes out at government incompetence.

What’s missing is any concern for people sickened by salmonella-in-beef sold by Hannaford and the responsibility any retailer has to provide safe food.

Earlier this week, Department of Agriculture investigators said they were hampered by lousy records and procedures at retailer Hannaford.

The Portland Press Herald says today the regulatory response to the outbreak, “looks like a horse and buggy operation. … federal authorities have not been able to shed much light on what happened before the meat was sold, with one official blaming the supermarket chain’s practice of mixing beef from different sources when it grinds it into hamburger.”

The editorial rightly says that if the mixing practice is risky, it should be prevented everywhere and that outbreaks require “thorough and transparent investigations and timely communication with the public.” But it also states that because meat is likely to cross state lines multiple times before it is put on a dinner table, regulating it is a federal responsibility.

Regulating is one aspect of responsibility. But the ultimate responsibility for safe food lies with producers and retailers and whoever is making the profit from the sale of food.

I look forward to more transparent and public communications from Hannaford.

16 sick from Salmonella Typhimurium in ground beef from Hannaford Supermarkets; CDC weighs in

CDC is collaborating with public health officials in several states and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) to investigate a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium infections linked to eating ground beef purchased from Hannaford Supermarkets.

Representatives from Hannaford have been cooperating with public health officials throughout the investigation. Public health investigators are using DNA "fingerprints" of Salmonella bacteria obtained through diagnostic testing with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to identify cases of illness that may be part of this outbreak. Investigators are using data from PulseNet, the national subtyping network made up of state and local public health laboratories and federal food regulatory laboratories that performs molecular surveillance of foodborne infections.

Preliminary testing shows that the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium is resistant to several commonly prescribed antibiotics. This antibiotic resistance may be associated with an increase in the risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected individuals.

A total of 16 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 7 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: HI (1), KY (1), MA (1), ME (4), NH (4), NY (4), and VT (1). Among persons for whom information is available, illnesses began on or after October 8, 2011. Ill persons range in age from 1 year to 79 years old, with a median age of 45 years old. Fifty percent are male. Among the 13 ill persons with available information, 7 (54%) have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

Among 16 ill persons for whom information is available, 11 (69%) reported consuming ground beef in the week before their illness began. Among the 11 cases who reported consuming ground beef, 10 (91%) reported purchasing ground beef from Hannaford stores. For ill persons for whom information is available, reported purchase dates range from October 12, 2011 to November 20, 2011.

On December 15, 2011, Hannaford, a Scarborough, Maine-based grocery chain, recalled an undetermined amount of fresh ground beef products that bear sell-by dates of December 17, 2011 or earlier.

14 sick with salmonella linked to ground beef recalled in NE US

Hannaford, a Scarborough, Maine-based grocery chain, is recalling fresh ground beef products that may be contaminated with a strain of Salmonella Typhimurium that has sickened at least 14 people.

The PFGE pattern associated with this outbreak is reported rarely in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) have reported 14 ill persons with an indistinguishable PFGE pattern, and 11 of those individuals reported consuming ground beef. Seven individuals were hospitalized and no deaths have been reported. Ten of the 14 case-patients reported purchasing ground beef at Hannaford stores in Maine, New York, New Hampshire and Vermont between Oct. 12 and Nov. 20. No other product description is available at this time.

As a result of on-going epidemiologic and traceback investigations, as well as in-store reviews, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), working with CDC and its state health partners, determined that there is a link between the Hannaford ground beef products and this illness outbreak.

The outbreak strain ofSalmonella Typhimurium has initially tested resistant to multiple commonly prescribed antibiotics, including drug classes such as beta-lactams, aminoglycosides, and cephalosporins. Additional information on drug resistance will be made public as it becomes available.

Based on an examination of Hannaford’s limited records, FSIS was unable to determine responsible suppliers. FSIS recently identified this problem at the retail level and is pursuing rulemaking to address the concern. This recall is being issued as part of a continuing investigation. FSIS has not yet been able to identify FSIS-regulated suppliers of raw beef ground at Hannaford Stores related to the outbreak that could be subject to recall action.

The products subject to recall are any size package of the following:
• "73% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "75% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "80% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "85% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "90% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "80% Taste of Inspirations Angus Ground Beef"
• "85% Taste of Inspirations Angus Ground Beef"
• "90% Taste of Inspirations Angus Ground Beef"
• "85% Nature’s Place Ground Beef"
"90% Nature’s Place Ground Beef."

14 sick with salmonella linked to ground beef recalled in NE US

Hannaford, a Scarborough, Maine-based grocery chain, is recalling fresh ground beef products that may be contaminated with a strain of Salmonella Typhimurium that has sickened at least 14 people.

The PFGE pattern associated with this outbreak is reported rarely in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) have reported 14 ill persons with an indistinguishable PFGE pattern, and 11 of those individuals reported consuming ground beef. Seven individuals were hospitalized and no deaths have been reported. Ten of the 14 case-patients reported purchasing ground beef at Hannaford stores in Maine, New York, New Hampshire and Vermont between Oct. 12 and Nov. 20. No other product description is available at this time.

As a result of on-going epidemiologic and traceback investigations, as well as in-store reviews, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), working with CDC and its state health partners, determined that there is a link between the Hannaford ground beef products and this illness outbreak.

The outbreak strain ofSalmonella Typhimurium has initially tested resistant to multiple commonly prescribed antibiotics, including drug classes such as beta-lactams, aminoglycosides, and cephalosporins. Additional information on drug resistance will be made public as it becomes available.

Based on an examination of Hannaford’s limited records, FSIS was unable to determine responsible suppliers. FSIS recently identified this problem at the retail level and is pursuing rulemaking to address the concern. This recall is being issued as part of a continuing investigation. FSIS has not yet been able to identify FSIS-regulated suppliers of raw beef ground at Hannaford Stores related to the outbreak that could be subject to recall action.

The products subject to recall are any size package of the following:
• "73% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "75% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "80% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "85% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "90% Hannaford Regular Ground Beef"
• "80% Taste of Inspirations Angus Ground Beef"
• "85% Taste of Inspirations Angus Ground Beef"
• "90% Taste of Inspirations Angus Ground Beef"
• "85% Nature’s Place Ground Beef"
"90% Nature’s Place Ground Beef."