(Bloomberg) -- Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the supplier of ground beef to U.S. school lunch programs, recalled a record 143.4 million pounds of meat after the government said it was unfit for humans.
The company, based in Chino, California, withdrew all raw and frozen products made since Feb. 1, 2006, because some of the cattle weren't fully inspected, the Department of Agriculture said in a statement yesterday. A total of 37 million pounds went to nutrition programs, including schools, since October 2006.
The order relates to so-called downer cattle discovered between the normal USDA inspection before slaughter and the killing of the animals, the department said. Downer cattle, those unable to walk, are banned from the food chain as a precaution against Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, also known as mad-cow disease, the USDA said.
The risk of consumers contracting BSE from the meat is ``negligible,'' the USDA said in a separate statement. ``The prevalence of the disease in the United States is extremely low,'' with two animals testing positive for the disease out of 759,000 tested nationwide since June 2004, the department said.
A video taken at the plant released by the Humane Society of the U.S. shows workers kicking cows and using electric prods and forklifts to make them move. Two Westland/Hallmark former employees were charged with animal cruelty by the San Bernardino District Attorney's office Feb. 15.
Operations Ceased
The company ceased operations last month after the video was revealed. In a statement posted on the company's Web site Feb. 3, Westland/Hallmark president Steve Mendell said the company was cooperating fully with the USDA. Two messages left yesterday with Westland/Hallmark seeking comment weren't immediately returned. Today is a U.S. public holiday.
The U.S. consumed 28 billion pounds of beef in 2006 and the U.S. beef industry was worth $71 billion that year on a retail basis, according to the USDA. Beef exports totaled 1.15 billion pounds worth $1.63 billion.
The recall shouldn't create a supply problem, Kim Essex, vice president of communications at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Denver today. ``I am very confident in the safety of the beef supply,'' she said.
The recalled meat is considered a low risk to food supply because almost all the meat has either been consumed or is being held from distribution, Richard Raymond, USDA under secretary for food safety, said in a teleconference call yesterday.
Hamburger Patties
The ground beef bought for schools was processed into products such as hamburger patties, chili meat and taco meat, Bill Sessions from the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service, said on the call, according to a transcript.
The recall is categorized as a Class II, meaning ``there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product,'' according to Raymond.
The recall is more than four times the size of the previous record, a 35 million-pound removal of Thorn Apple Valley Inc. ready-to-eat meats potentially contaminated with listeria in January 1999, Raymond said.
``All of the larger recalls done in the past were all Class I,'' Raymond said. ``In this one we feel there is a very, very remote possibility of anyone suffering health consequences.''
About 150 U.S. school districts are no longer using beef from Hallmark Meat Packing Co., the Associated Press reported, without saying where it got the information.
Kidney Exports
Schools in Washington state and California said they wouldn't serve students beef for now, Agence France-Presse reported, citing unidentified local officials.
Hamburger patties and meatballs in schools in South Florida are being destroyed as part of the recall, the South Florida Sun- Sentinel newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information.
Westland/Hallmark's exports last year consisted of kidneys and livers to Ivory Coast and livers to Angola, the USDA said. There have been no exports to Japan or South Korea since at least 2003, the department said.
Japan and South Korea banned U.S. beef imports after the first U.S. case of mad-cow disease was found in 2003. Japan, once the largest U.S. beef export market, now only imports meat from animals aged 20 months or younger, which have a lower risk.
The 27-nation European Union only imports hormone-free beef from the U.S., which has to be produced separately from other livestock, Michael Mann, a spokesman for agriculture and rural development at the European Commission, said by telephone today. The EU exported 87 tons of beef to the U.S. in 2006.
