USDA to Tell Shoppers Which Stores Sell Recalled Meat

July 11, 2008— -- Despite rampant concerns about food safety, people shopping for groceries or eating out often don't know if the food they are buying is safe.

But on Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture said it will soon give shoppers more information in the most serious recall cases. Today, the USDA announced it will tell consumers the names of stores where recalled meat and poultry products were, or possibly still are, being sold. The goal is to make it easier for shoppers to determine whether their store may be selling meat that's been recalled for potentially deadly contamination, allowing them to double check and make sure they're not buying any of it.

For the first time, the new rule allows the government to publicly release the names of the stores that have sold recalled meat and poultry posing the most severe risks to peoples' health. USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service will post a list of stores on its Web site.

The changes come on the heels of several recalls that have left people nationwide wondering whether they were buying dinner from a store that had received tainted meat. On July 3, Nebraska Beef Ltd of Omaha recalled more than five million pounds of beef after an E. coli outbreak that first emerged at Kroger grocery stores in Michigan and Ohio. This winter, a February recall of 143 million pounds of beef from a California slaughterhouse was the nation's largest beef recall ever.

"We need this rule to reinstall the confidence of the American public that we are in control here," said Richard Raymond, head of the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service.

Still, the changes announced today would not have applied to the February recall, which was categorized as a slightly lesser risk to public health. It was left out of the agency's most serious recall "Class 1" category to which the new rule applies.

The narrower rule left advocacy group Food & Water Watch saying today that the announcement should have gone further.

While Food & Water Watch said it was "encouraged" by the new rule, it immediately argued that the new guidelines should be extended to all recalled products.