Customer complaints about discolored hamburger with an off odor prompted a recall of about 226,400 pounds of ground beef, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced late Monday.
Frozen products from One Great Burger, an Elizabeth, NJ-based company, are subject to the Class II, Low Health Risk recall.
The beef was distributed to institutions in Oregon and California. No illnesses have been linked to the spoiled meat.
The FSIS investigation of the customer complaints uncovered evidence that the establishment repackaged and recoded returned products and sent them out for further distribution to institutional customers, the FDA said in a news release.
FSIS said it must consider the products to be adulterated and has acted to remove the products from commerce. FSIS is continuing to investigate.
The products being recalled are 20 lbs. boxes of “ONE GREAT HAMBURGERS” with “ITEM #02044” labeled on the front as well as “KEEP FROZEN.”
Each box bears establishment number “EST. 34575” within the USDA mark of inspection.
The products were produced between January 2010 and May 2010 and contain “PACKED ON” dates ranging from July 2010 to November 2010.
FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers.