Food Recall Data

Ground beef

In 1993 the meatpacking industry sued the USDA in federal court following the Clinton administration’s announcement that it would begin randomly testing beef for E.coli O157:H7, They lost that suit opening the way for the USDA to begin a “science-based” inspection system that has since been expanded to include testing for other pathogens, as well as testing of poultry and processed egg products.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a public health agency within the USDA, maintains records relating to its food safety mission and makes them publically available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Included in this information is an archive of raw statistics on product recoveries by establishment. SRA Project has compiled this raw data into a series of charts covering the years between 1998 to 2010 we believe will be of interest to our readers.

Total Meat Recalled by Meat Type ( in pounds or in tons)
Total Recalls by Pathogen or other Causes (in pounds or in tons)
Recalls Year by Year Totals (in pounds or in tons)
Summary Data

Starting in 2008 and including 2009, data are available that show the total quantities of meat reclaimed as a percentage of the recalled meat totals. Reclaimed meat totals indicate what has been recovered (returned to producer), but does not explain what is subsequently done with the meat upon recovery. Recovery rates per recall remain an issue, as it appears that most recalled meat is not recovered (shown as Unrecovered in chart legend). This imbalance raises the possibility that this meat was either consumed before or after the recall. Recovery rates can vary for several reasons, – how quickly meat gets to market, the number of days between production or when problems are detected.

Please feel free to download, print, and distribute these charts for your own use. We simply ask that you do not remove the footer information displaying the name of our organization, the date and the reference to FSIS as the source of the data.

Foodborne illness costs the United States an estimated $152 billion annually. The Make Our Food Safecoalition’s website has built an interactive online map that uses data from former FDA economist Robert L. Scharff’s report, The Health Related Costs of Foodborne Illness. This interactive map allows readers to see medical, quality of life, lost life expectancy and other related costs for each state.

In the News

1/11/2011 – In a Meatingplace.com article by Lisa M. Keefe titled Ground beef recalled due to possible adulteration, spoilage Ms Keefe notes that a New Jersey based business, One Great Burger, is recalling 226,400 lbs of ground beef products following customer complaints of product discoloration and foul odors. Further investigation by the FSIS showed that the establishment repackaged, recoded, then shipped the returned product to certain institutional customers. The FSIS has had no reports of illness associated with this product, but will continue its investigation of the product.

Check out our Featured Archives page to learn more!