Cases upon cases of beef have been sitting in storage in Temple and Belton since Feb. 1 after hold notices went out informing schools about a potential problem with beef from the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. However, this was not before hundreds of hamburger patties, about 50 cases, were consumed by students.
Spokeswoman Regina Baird said no one has reported getting sick.
The recall was “a precaution because of an increased risk,” she said. “To the best of our knowledge we have not seen any illnesses here or anywhere.”
The Temple school district has 21 cases left that will be thrown out, and it will cost $12,000 to replace.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has recalled 143 million pounds of beef after video of animal cruelty and downed cattle came to light. Regulations don’t allow slaughter houses to process cows that aren’t on their feet because of the possibility of disease.
Much of the meat from these cows was sent out as part of the national school lunch program. The recall spans a two-year period so most of the 143 million pounds have been consumed, but hundreds of cases destined for lunchrooms around Central Texas will now likely be destroyed.
Temple gets its beef wholesale through a Region 10 Co-op, and is then taken to a processing plant and turned into products like hamburger patties and steak fingers. About 5,700 students eat in school cafeterias daily, but beef is not served every day and when it is served only half choose beef.
She said this is not the first time products received by the school have had to be held or recalled.
“Recalls are pretty common. When you ship that much of a product there is always a possibility, but certainly nothing of this magnitude,” Ms. Baird said. “The USDA has lots and lots of inspectors and we don’t feel that this is low-grade meat. Unfortunately, things like this happen and the USDA has been very diligent in letting us know there was a concern.”
She said there is a chance that Region 13 might reimburse districts for the lost product, but a decision has not been reached.
The Belton school district has 111 cases of hamburger patties, steak fingers and meatballs sitting in freezers that will have to be thrown away. Only one case out of 116 from the recalled shipment made it to students’ stomachs, according to Reba Baker, director of school nutrition, and there have been no illnesses.
The cost to the district will only be around $3,500 because much of it was procured through a USDA commodity program and the district uses an allotment system to purchase excess ground beef.
Ms. Baker is hoping to get their money back or at least get it traded pound for pound for new meat.
She said concerns about food safety happen once or twice a year.
“Five or six years ago we had some chicken that was in question,” she said. “We’ve been real lucky and we’ve never had anything we have had to destroy.”
