ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. – In an announcement made March 8, the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Creekstone Farms Premium Beef’s recall of approximately 14,158 lbs. of ground beef products that may be contaminated withE. coli O157:H7. The suspected products were produced at the company’s Arkansas City, Kan. plant on Feb. 22, 2011, and shipped to customers in Arizona, California, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington where they were to be processed further and/or distributed. The issue was discovered through third party lab results confirming a positive result for
E. coliO157:H7. There have been no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of these products.

The Creekstone management team issued a written statement on March 9 addressing the recall. The products in question have been tracked and the companies that received it have been contacted. Arrangements to coordinate the recall of the products from customers is now occurring, according to Creekstone.

“Creekstone Farms Premium Beef takes this issue very seriously and though it impacts only a small number of our accounts and pounds produced, we are proceeding with an abundance of caution to ensure the subject products are effectively removed from commerce,” the statement says.

The management team iterates the company views food safety as a top priority and that it stands behind its proven commitment of producing safe products for consumers.

“To this end we have reviewed and confirmed that our training, testing, documentation, and operational procedures meet or exceed USDA requirements,” the statement says.