Updated 4:55 pm to include comment from Mission hospital
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A list of restaurants and food service outlets that received recalled beef from a Chino slaughterhouse has expanded to include high-profile Orange County businesses, including Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Mastro’s steakhouses — including two in Orange County — and Jenny Craig diet meals were also added to the state’s Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. beef distribution list. The Chino slaughterhouse, owned by Corona del Mar resident Steven Mendell, was forced to recall 143 million pounds of beef last month after workers were caught abusing crippled cows, before slaughter.
So-called downer cows are banned from the food supply because they are at higher risk for spreading illnesses such as mad cow disease.
Hoag spokeswoman Andrea Winter said the recalled Chino beef was “sent back” once the hospital learned from its supplier, Sysco, that it was tied to Hallmark/Westland. She maintained that none of the beef was fed to patients, employees or visitors.
The beef recall is the largest in the nation’s history, and covers two years worth of meat. Most of the beef has likely been consumed, state and federal health officials have said. However, the recall was labeled a Class 2 by the Department of Agriculture, meaning anyone who ate the meat has a remote chance of getting sick.
Still, California health officials have scrambled for weeks to identify restaurants, cafeterias and grocery stores that received the recalled beef. The agency updates its distribution list every few days. Besides Hoag, Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo was also on the list.
Colleen Reinhart, a Mission hospital spokeswoman, said: “We did not receive the product.” The hospital is investigating why it got on the state’s list, she added.
The state said Jenny Craig Salisbury steak and meatloaf meals were made with beef recalled from Westland/Hallmark. Lisa Talamini, a Jenny Craig program executive, said the company has taken swift action to notify its customers.
“We have asked our distribution centers and retail channels to locate and destroy all impacted products,” Talamini said in a statement. “As part of our commitment to quality and client service, we are making every effort to inform those clients who are in receipt of impacted product.”
Debbie Bohnett, a spokeswoman for Woodland Hills-based Mastro’s, said the steakhouse chain is trying to figure out how it got on the list. The fine dining establishment receives its beef supplies from the Midwest, and only gets “burger patties” from California. That meat is used for employee dinners, and not served on the menu, she added.
Many restaurants have complained that the state health agency’s list is inaccurate. At least one Orange County restaurant has been removed from the list since it was first published a few week ago. To learn how to get your name removed from the government list, CLICK HERE to read a Register report.
To read the Hallmark/Westland beef distribution list, CLICK HERE.
Happy Cows come from Chino California..
Should fat chicks be eating Salisbury steak and meatloaf?
I’ve been on Jenny Craig (off and on) for approximately 2 years and NOT one representative has notified me of the Salisbury steak and meatloaf meals being made with beef recalled. To hear this now really disturbs me!
Are we suppose to believe prior to the incident and recall no beef was ever sold from downer cows? We’ve all probably eaten downer cows, and I wish I’d never seen the footage on the news, that’s something I’d prefer to read about instead.