Health Law

Kroger Stores, Including Fry's, Smith's And Food 4 Less All Come Forward In JBS Beef Recall

By Marler Clark LLP

Looks like JBS Swift USA has one customer coming forward on its own.

The Kroger Co. and its Fry's, Smith's, and Food 4 Less stores are all asking customers to check their freezers and return any beef with April 27-June 1 sell-by dates.  The Smith's website has a good summary.

Kroger said it was 'recalling select store-brand and store-packaged ground beef products because the beef was supplied by JBS Swift Beef Co. and may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.'

Kroger stores in the Greater Cincinnati area, including Dayton, northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana; Greater Memphis, Tenn.; Arkansas, Mississippi; Indiana (except southwestern Indiana and Evansville); Illinois; and eastern Missouri sold the bad beef.

Smith's stores, which are located in western states, are also involved in the recall. As are Food 4 Less stores in Illinois and Indiana and Fry's Stores in Arizona.

Kroger, with $76 billion in sales last year, is the only retail chain to acknowledge its involvement in the JBS recall of beef linked by the Centers on Disease Control and Inspection (CDC) to a multi-state outbreak of E. coli O157:H7.

The Cincinnati-based Kroger has 2,475 stores in 31 states doing business under a bunch of names.

Still nothing from FSIS to indicate whether JBS sold meat to others besides the Kroger chain.

Full post as published by e.Coli Blog on June 30, 2009 (boomark / email).