Life Technologies Corp. has received a Letter of No Objection from the USDA-FSIS for its RapidFinder STEC (Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli) Detection system.
It has been over a year since the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) declared six non-O157 STECs as adulterants on raw non-intact beef, and almost five months since the agency started testing beef trimmings for these pathogens.
Main Street Quality Meats, a Salt Lake City, Utah establishment, is recalling approximately 2,310 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7
. Doug O’Halloran, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, said there is a “desperate need” for an improved culture of food safety at the plant.
In conducting standard recall effectiveness checks of U.S. domestic establishments receiving beef from XL Foods, Inc. (Canadian Establishment 038), the USDA discovered that whole muscle beef cuts prduced on the same production dates as beef subject to recall in Canada were being used to produce raw ground products.
This allows companies to use the NeoSEEK system to comply with the USDA’s recently implemented regulation that requires the testing of raw beef trim for six new STEC serogroups, in addition to the previously regulated STEC, E. coli O157:H7.
The intent is to make the program more risk-based and to enable FSIS to calculate on-going statistical prevalence estimates for E. coli O157:H7 in raw beef manufacturing trimmings.
Dale T. Smith and Sons Meat Packing, a Draper, Utah establishment, is recalling approximately 38,200 pounds of beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
On May 7, 2012, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) posted a Federal Register Notice titled: “Traceback, Recall Procedures for Escherichia coli O157:H7 Positive Raw Beef Product, and Availability of Compliance Guidelines.”
