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Where's the beef? It's in the trash
(by Mark J. Bonamo - March 05, 2008)
School officials toss lunch staple after national food scare
Jacob Salerno, a first-grader at Fairmount School, was happy with how he did when he received his report card last week. But his smiling face flickered into a frown when it came time to grade the school cafeteria. Jacob knows what’s good for him. And recently, the hamburgers on the menu apparently were not.
“I like bringing in my own lunch better,” said Jacob, 6. “That’s because Mom checks it if there is any hair in it or anything. If Mommy makes it, I know it’s good.”
Unfortunately, Jacob’s mother does not make all the school lunches for the Hackensack school district. But the cafeteria menu still underwent a drastic but definitely needed change in recent weeks. The city’s schools, along with 10 other Bergen County school districts, were mandated to remove thousands of pounds of beef products from school stocks as part of a nationwide 143 million-pound ground beef recall.
The recalled beef products, 168,000 pounds of which have now been removed or are being taken from 140 school districts and 15 parochial schools statewide by order of the state Agriculture Department, were sent to New Jersey as part of the National School Lunch Program sponsored by the federal government. Local school officials, parents and students were relieved that no one appeared to be sickened by the recalled beef before it was removed and destroyed.
But that relief also led to one question yet responded to. If Jacob’s mom is not watching to see what goes into all the local school lunches, who is?
Bad beef breakdown
The maligned meat in question originated at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. of Chico, Calif. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued the largest beef recall in the nation’s history on Feb. 17 after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video showing workers at the slaughterhouse using various implements, including a forklift, to force sick and crippled cows to stand. These type of cows that cannot walk on their own, known as “downer cows,” are considered unsafe for human consumption because of their heightened chances of carrying harmful diseases. Other violations of the federal meat-inspection process were also reportedly seen on the video, further fueling the recall.
The plant has been subsequently shut down and two employees are facing criminal charges in the case, while federal lawmakers began the process this week to subpoena the testimony of Steve Mendell, the president of the slaughterhouse, before a Congressional committee investigating the incident. Overall, close to 50 million pounds of the recently recalled beef were sent to schools nationwide as part of the federal lunch program. According to federal officials, 20 million pounds were consumed, 15 million pounds are in storage and 15 million pounds have yet to be located.
Garden State agriculture officials pointed out the statewide 168,000-pound recall is a fraction of the 24 million pounds of food sent to the state annually as part of the USDA program. Out of 616 statewide school districts, 583 of them participate in the program.
Hackensack acts quickly
Frank Seery, Hackensack school business administrator and board secretary, noted that district officials moved swiftly upon learning of the recall.
“We were closed that week for February recess, but when I saw the recall in the news, I contacted our vendor, Chartwells,” said Seery. Chartwells is a subsidiary of the British-based Compass Group, one of the largest food service companies in the world.
“Together, we made plans to have all of product to be recalled that we had removed on Feb. 19 under the direction of the city health department,” Seery continued. “We didn’t put any of it into the trash until the garbage trucks were there because we didn’t want foraging. Then on Feb. 22, I was informed that there was an additional inventory check that discovered six boxes weighing about eight pounds each of hamburger beef patties that were on the recall list. We did a third inventory on Feb. 25 and found nothing. The beef products to be recalled are now all gone.”
Seery said that there were no reports of any student or staff illnesses related to any allegedly contaminated meat that was at one time present in the school system. However, he was concerned that the Hackensack school system, which feeds close to 5,000 students daily of out a total student population of about 7,000, had to face the problem in the first place.
“I have no idea how you slaughter a cow, but I saw on the news that some of these cows were stumbling as they went into slaughter,” he said.
“We assume that if we get something from the federal government, it’s under some sort of umbrella. It’s not like going to your dad’s deli and asking for prosciutto. But in this particular case, we dealt with the problem under the guidance of local health officials.”
Milly Salerno always makes school lunch for her son Jacob
Mom is always watching
Standing with her son Jacob outside of Fairmount School at three o’clock on report card day, mother Milly Salerno offered some advice to those who judge whether the beef her child might eat makes the grade or not.
“What happened is disgusting,” said Salerno, who also has two children in Hackensack Middle School. “The government doesn’t have enough inspectors. Let’s hire some more inspectors and make sure all of our food is clean.”
In the meantime, Mrs. Salerno is looking forward to some new school menu options for her son and the rest of the student body.
“I guess you have to send your kids to school with their own lunch, but some kids depend on this lunch as an important meal of the day,” she said.
“Tomorrow, the kids are going to have turkey cheese nachos instead of beef cheese nachos. Looks like it’s going to be turkey burgers for a while.”
E-mail: bonamo@northjersey.com
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