By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

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Lane Hickenbottom Students go through the lunch line at Grand Island Northwest High School, where beef products have been put on a hold by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Lane Hickenbottom More than 30 cases of meat that was shipped to Northwest High School that originated from a Chino, Calif.-based meat packing plant will be destroyed at the school. Click Thumbnails to View

Kris Spellman, food service director for the Grand Island Public Schools, said her office received a Jan. 30 e-mail notification on beef products that should have a "hold" placed on them and not be served as part of the school lunch program.

Spellman said the products for the Grand Island Public Schools included breaded beef patties, ground beef and raw ground beef. She said the total amount was probably "more than several hundred pounds."

Robyn Wright, who is the food service director for Northwest Public Schools, said Northwest has 27 cases of breaded beef patties and five cases of beef meatballs that were placed on hold.

With Saturday's announcement by the USDA that 143 million pounds of meat were being recalled, all the products that were on hold at the Grand Island Public Schools and Northwest Public Schools will now be destroyed.

Wright said she was officially notified shortly after 9 a.m. Monday about the official recall.

Spellman noted that despite the use of the term "recall," none of the beef will actually be shipped back. She said the beef will be made inedible by pouring bleach or ammonia over it and placing it in dumpsters.

Wright said Northwest also will use bleach or ammonia to render the beef placed in dumpsters inedible. That prevents the possibility of anybody retrieving the meat from dumpsters and consuming it.

Wright said Northwest has substituted breaded pork patties for school lunches that originally had been scheduled to use the beef products that had been placed on hold.

Spellman said the Grand Island Public Schools purchased beef from other sources to substitute for the beef that was on hold and that will now be destroyed.

Even though Grand Island Public Schools received the beef through the USDA commodity program, Spellman said, the district counted it the same as cash because that was money it did not have to spend to buy beef.

Spellman said she is not sure whether the Grand Island Public Schools or other school districts will be reimbursed for the beef that had to be destroyed. She speculated that perhaps the USDA will extend a credit to school districts for next school year.

She noted that school districts are getting close enough to the end of the school year that it was only due to receive one more commodity shipment this year.

The recall will affect beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the federal agency said. The company provided meat to various federal programs.

The recall was made because some of the cattle that were slaughtered were non-ambulatory. Such cattle often are called "downed" or "downer cattle."

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease since they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.

Spellman said the beef involved was received by the Grand Island Public Schools in November, December and January, which means that some of the meat from Hallmark was consumed. But she also noted that the Grand Island Public Schools cooks all it beef to at least 165 degrees, which kills E. coli, salmonella and other contamination.

Wright said some of the beef products from Hallmark would have been consumed by Northwest Public Schools students before the hold was placed on the meat. The Northwest High School cafeteria prepares school lunches for three elementary feeder schools: Cedar Hollow, District 1-R, and St. Libory.

Julia West, program coordinator for food distribution for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said every school district in Nebraska was offered the option of taking commodity products that could have involved the beef that had a hold on it placed on it on Jan. 30 and which is being recalled.

However, because Monday was a state holiday and West was not in her office, she had no statistics on how many Nebraska school districts may have accepted the recalled beef through the commodity distribution.

Like Spellman and Wright, West said school districts who accepted the beef would have served at least some of that product before it was officially placed on hold and then recalled.

But West also pointed out that school districts in 17 states nationwide would have served some of the beef that is now being recalled and not a single case of illness has been reported.

Vickey Jensen, head of Aurora's food service program; Doniphan-Trumbull Superintendent Kirk Russell; St. Paul Superintendent Doug Ackles; and Wood River Superintendent Cindy Huff all confirmed Monday that their school districts are among the Nebraska school districts that received shipments of the beef that is now the subject of the recall.

Various districts have received different beef products that are being recalled.

Most districts said they would destroy the meat for human consumption before disposing of it, although Ackles said he was informed that some people may actually retrieve the beef if a district has more than 50 cases in storage.