BS: Boar's head food poisoning

Subject: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 12:36 AM

I want to warn my American friends about the Boar's Head food poisoning outbreak. Boar's Head is a brand of deli meats which is widely distributed, and their products have produced a listeria outbreak which has killed 9 and hospitalized 57 so far.

Cases have been reported in 18 states as far apart as New York and New Mexico. The contaminated meat came from a plant in Virginia. If you have any of their lunch meat in your fridge, throw it away.

For more info google this: Boar's Head latest

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: Helen
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 12:50 AM

Hi leeneia,

Here is an article which was posted yesterday on the (Oz) ABC News website:

Listeria outbreak linked to nine deaths in US

There are some tips at the end of the article to try to prevent listeria poisoning.

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 03:06 AM

Must be some way to work it into this:

The Boar"s Head Carol

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 11:01 AM

I have seen Boar's Head trucks/lorries, in the past, delivering their goods directly to the stores. Not recently, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 02:26 PM

This is a damn shame. It boggles the mind that a successful business could turn so stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 04:14 PM

They have a reputation for being a good quality of products but the article I read about this in the New York Times was about as off-putting as imaginable. (They ran a big piece about E. coli in ground beef in 2009 that made me decide right then to never purchase industrially produced ground beef - I use cuts of chuck and grind my own now.)

From the current article:

Federal meat inspectors documented black mold, water dripping over meat and dead flies at a Virginia Boar’s Head deli meat plant that has now been linked to nine deaths from listeria, according to records.

Over the course of a year, food safety inspectors, who are a constant presence in meat facilities across the United States, noted escalating problems at the plant.

Under U.S. Department of Agriculture rules, the processing facility, in rural Virginia, was expected to swab for listeria, which the agency considers a “zero tolerance” concern that can spur an immediate recall. Yet the inspectors — who also swab and test for listeria, a lethal bacteria — do not appear to have been the first to prompt a recall of more than seven million pounds of ham, salami, hot dogs and other meats by Boar’s Head.

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: Helen
Date: 31 Aug 24 - 06:13 PM

That's not good. I'm guessing there will be an investigation and possible litigation. The business might be at major financial risk.

There was a case in Australia a few years back which was linked to a well-known and reputable brand of deli meats. I tried an internet search but the current listeria outbreak in the US is overshadowing the historical case in Oz. I can't remember whether it was listeria or salmonella or something else. From memory the brand name was Don, and I believe they managed to get themselves back on track and have had no further incidents as far as I know. I recall the company behaved very responsibly and took all necessary precautions.

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 24 - 06:37 PM

When you do a search in Google News on "Boar's Head" the listed recent searches include queries about the stock price, about the plant locations, about the products and the distribution locations. Clearly some of those interested are the ones who eat it and others are interested in their investments.

In that Times article was the interesting information about how they tracked it down to Boar's Head:

The alarm rang after people like Günter Morgenstein, a hair stylist renowned in coastal Virginia, fell gravely ill. As Mr. Morgenstein, an active 88-year-old known as Garshon, grew frail in the hospital in early July, his family racked their brains to think of everything he had eaten in recent weeks.

As listeria illnesses spread, a disease detective in Maryland began to suspect liverwurst as the common thread, given the older age of the hospitalized patients. Her hunch proved correct: Whole genome sequencing matched the patients’ bacteria to Boar’s Head liverwurst bought at a store, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, setting off the recall of 3,500 tons of meat.

Liverwurst being a food favored by older people who have experience with it and still eat it. I've never had it.

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: leeneia
Date: 03 Sep 24 - 11:34 PM

Makes sense. I like liverwurst but don't buy it because the packages would spoil before two people could eat it all. I am being perfectly serious when I say that in my childhood we ate liverwurst on white bread with sliced sweet pickles.

But we were the sophisticates on our block, because when possible we put it on rye bread. With caraway seeds, no less.

To return to serious thoughts, I cannot understand a firm allowing the conditions reported to persist in a facility. Setting aside the important ethical factor, the economic blow from this far outstrips the cost of maintaining a clean operation.

Maybe it's another case of the maxim "Top management never knows what's really going on."

Subject: RE: BS: Boar's head food poisoning
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 04 Sep 24 - 05:19 AM

This is just crying out for a parody - already worked out the chorus:

Campylobacter, shigella
Clostridium perfringens.

I will work on the rest on Sunday and maybe even pop into the mudcat singaround to debut it.