Published: November 07, 2007 01:56 am            

Consumers having a cow over latest beef recall

SALEM, Mass. — Tuesday morning Connie Faro of Salem heard about the removal of ground beef from stores in two New England supermarket chains, part of a nationwide recall of more than 1 million pounds over possible E. coli bacteria contamination.

Tuesday afternoon she shopped at a specialty store, McKinnon's Market and Super Butcher Shop in Salem, for ground beef to make her Italian wedding soup.

In New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Hannaford and Stop & Shop supermarkets are pulling ground beef off the shelves as part of a nationwide recall by Cargill Inc.

Nationwide, other chain supermarkets also are recalling beef from Cargill. No illnesses have been reported as a result of contamination.

Several shoppers quizzed on beef fears said they trust supermarkets to keep their shelves clear of any tainted meat.

"I'm not concerned," said Karla Pilla of Hampstead, buying steak at The Prime Butcher in Hampstead.

Meat cutters at area specialty stores said large-scale beef recalls - this is the second one in the last month | typically hurt everyone, small stores and supermarkets alike, in the short term.

But ultimately, the specialty stores - where prices are generally higher - see an uptick in business as memory of the recall dims, the yearning for a home-cooked burger takes hold, and more consumers learn that specialty butcher shops grind their own meat several times a day.

Tom Yameen, an owner of Butcher Boy Market in North Andover, Mass., said he has noticed no difference in business with the recall.

"We are pretty busy all the time," he said.

Yameen said he and other specialty shops receive their beef from the same big beef operations in the Midwest as supermarkets. The difference is supermarkets buy beef ground at those plants and specialty stores grind their own to offer a fresher product with less chance of contamination.

His store orders boxes of sealed beef pieces with two or three packages inside weighing 20 to 25 pounds each, and grinds beef 10 to 12 times a day or as needed - about 100 pounds at a time, he said.

Mike Lutsko, meat manager for The Prime Butcher in Windham, said the chance of beef becoming contaminated at big processing plants is much greater.

That's because the large plants grind thousands of pounds of meat at a time and ship it in tubes to supermarkets while at the small butcher stores the meat is much fresher, he said.

"We grind our own, three or four times a day, or as needed," he said.

Lutsko, who worked 18 years as a meat manager at a major supermarket chain, expects he will field 15 to 20 beef recall-related questions in the next week.

Store clerk Tammy Sullivan said she had just fielded a question moments earlier from a customer who wondered if the meat was safe to eat. She explained that it was fine. Another customer cleaned the case out of burger, buying 10 pounds.

Customer Michael Guarino of Sandown, a chef, said he's not overly concerned about the recall because he buys little hamburger, but in general he researches the chain from where the meat and fish he buys came to ensure its freshness.

The U.S. Agriculture Department found a problem with E. coli bacteria in a sample of the beef produced on Oct. 8, a Cargill spokesman said.



Terry Date writes for The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass. E-mail him at tdate@eagletribune.com

        

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