California Ground Beef Recalled For E. Coli Potential

Commercial Meat Company, of Los Angeles, has announced a recall of nearly 378,000 pound of ground beef because the products may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.  The recall was announced via press release Tuesday by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The agency's statement says these ground beef products are covered by this recall:

• 5,10,15,20,30,40,50 and 60 lb. cases of bulk ground beef
• 5,10 and 20 lb. cases of ground beef patties
• 10,15,20,30,40 and 50 lb. cases of ground beef taco
• 5,10,15,20,25,30,40,50 and 60 lb. cases of ground beef chili 

Each case of these foods should have a code that reads "EST. 4873" inside the USDA inspection mark.  The USDA says that all these items were shipped to restaurants with the exception of one case which was shipped to a processing plant for further processing.  They were all produced between September 7th and October 6th of this year.


The potential E. coli contamination was found during routine USDA monitoring.  Unfortunately, while the company was waiting for test results it did not place a hold on the meats, the USDA says, but neither the company nor the USDA has received any reports of any actual E. coli infections in people.