Whole Foods recalls ground beef
7 Mass. residents are ill after eating tainted meat
Seven people in Massachusetts have fallen ill, most likely after eating beef sold at
The contamination is a major blow to a chain that promotes its food as superior to a typical grocery store's - and that is already struggling in the weak economy.
Massachusetts appears to be at the center of this latest outbreak of food poisoning, with seven of the nine cases nationwide. All nine, including two victims in Pennsylvania, ate meat apparently tainted with the E. coli bacteria, which can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration, and in severe cases, kidney failure.
This is the third time this summer that consumers have had to worry about what's in their refrigerators. First, it was fear of tomatoes tainted with salmonella - though the culprits turned out be jalapeño peppers. Then, worries about contaminated ground beef at the Kroger grocery chain.
This time, the source of the dangerous meat was probably a Whole Foods supplier, Coleman Natural Beef, whose meat is processed by Nebraska Beef Ltd., which was also involved in the Kroger contamination.
Whole Foods said it had demanded promises from Coleman that none of its beef was tainted.
"At the time of the previous recall, Whole Foods Market received assurances from Coleman Natural Beef that no product delivered to Whole Foods Market was linked to the recall," the Austin, Texas-based company said in a statement. "Those assurances are now in question."
Nebraska Beef's lawyers did not return calls yesterday.
Investigators with the US Department of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health spent last weekend taking samples from many of the 19 Whole Foods stores in Massachusetts. But given the time lag between when the meat was sold and when the people got sick, it is difficult to be 100 percent certain that the bad beef came from Whole Foods.
The evidence makes it "highly likely" that the Coleman beef sold at Whole Foods is at fault, said Dr. Bela Matyas of the state health department. "The linkage is strong, but it's still an association."
DNA fingerprinting of specimens taken from people who got sick in Massachusetts are different from samples gathered in Kroger-related cases in Michigan and Ohio, Matyas said.
"It's definitely not the case that the original recalled beef is the source for this outbreak, but it's clearly related," he said. "It's the same distributor . . . it's the same problem." Food contamination is an unfortunate part of nature, said Jean Kinsey, co-director of the Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota.
"It's almost impossible to say that we're ever going to get totally free of all food contamination - hopefully we'll minimize it," she said. "And no amount of testing - no distributor can test every package that goes out - it would be impossible - the cost of meat would be enormous."
The best way to avoid contamination is to cook food to 160 degrees, she said.
All seven Massachusetts residents who got sick between July 11 and 29 shopped at different Whole Foods Markets. Six of them had eaten ground beef, and the seventh had eaten a steak cooked on the same grill as hamburger bought at the store.
Five of the victims have been hospitalized, but all are expected to recover. Officials would not release identifying information, saying only that they ranged in age from 3 to 60 and lived in Essex, Middlesex, and Suffolk counties.
The very young, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are the most susceptible to foodborne illness.
Most people who eat food tainted by E. coli don't get sick enough to see a doctor, so the number of infections may be higher than the official counts.
"For every case sick enough to require hospitalization, there are probably 50 to 100 other cases that occur that didn't get sick enough," Matyas said.
Signs were posted at the Whole Foods stores in Massachusetts yesterday warning shoppers about the tainted beef and offering a full refund for customers who bring packaging or receipts from their meat purchases. All products from Coleman have been removed from Whole Foods stores, spokeswoman Libba Letton said.
Sales earlier this week promoting low-cost ground beef were "just a coincidence," Letton said, part of a summer-long campaign to promote value.
The outbreak comes at a bad time for the luxury grocer. Shoppers are moving back to standard grocery stores amid a slowing economy and quarterly profits are down, said Kevin Griffin, publisher of The Griffin Report of Food Marketing, a Duxbury-based trade newspaper. "I think it's going to be a major public relations challenge for them to overcome," he said.
The company pitches its food as "better for you. It comes from sources that are premium. And you hear E. coli, you think of Taco Bell," he said.
The association with E. coli could be devastating to the chain's brand, said Akshay Rao, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota. In times of such crises, executives must act quickly and appropriately. "Your first task is to recall the product - no casting blame, no pointing fingers, just recall the product and take your lumps," he said.
Rao said if he were advising Whole Foods, he would tell them to follow
But Whole Foods shouldn't overreact, Rao said. "You want to make sure your assessment of the situation is consistent with reality," he said. "That is, are people concerned enough to stop shopping at Whole Foods, or will this blow over?"
Yesterday at the Whole Foods in Brighton, a casual survey of shopper suggests the damage might not be lasting. Jocelyn Sand, 43, of Brookline regularly buys ground beef from the market.
"It gives me a little pause," said Sand, "but I will probably buy it again - I think our [entire] food supply is [suspect] from time to time, but I still think Whole Foods is more on top of things than other places."
