IBP Recalls 282,000
Pounds Of Ground Beef

WASHINGTON — Beef packing giant IBP last week voluntarily recalled more than 282,000 pounds of ground beef suspected of containing E. coli bacteria.

The ground beef was produced by an IBP plant in Joslin, Ill., on April 14, a USDA spokeswoman said. Health departments in some 20 states were notified of the contamination, but there have been no reports of illnesses linked to the bad meat, the spokeswoman said.

USDA detected the E.coli 0157:H7 during a random testing of IBP products, said USDA spokeswoman Jacquee Knight.

The beef recall involves the entire day's production at Joslin. The bacteria was found only in one sample.

The meat was packaged and distributed in large sausage-shaped shipments known as "chubbs" to stores, institutions and other large-volume customers.

"This is not the type of product that a consumer would buy. This is what a big store would buy to grind it up to make ground beef," Knight said. "It could have possibly been consumed, but if consumers are cooking it properly there should be no problem."

Other reports citing unnamed government spokesmen said most of the beef was thought to have been consumed.

Illinois sued IBP last January after receiving hundreds of complaints about smelly emissions at the slaughtering and processing plant, said Dennis McMurray, a spokesman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The Joslin plant also made news last June when immigration officials arrested 142 Mexican workers and deported 128 of them for lacking proper documentation to work in the United States.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service said at the time that it was unlikely the company knew the workers were illegal because many used phony documents to get their jobs. The meat-packer has since joined forces with the INS to check potential employees against a Social Security database.