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Pizza Recall — Why Now?
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Pizza Recall

by Bryan

The Associated Press reports: E. coli fears prompt recall of millions of frozen pizzas

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) — General Mills on Thursday recalled about 5 million frozen pizzas sold nationwide under the Totino’s and Jeno’s labels because of possible E. coli contamination.

The problem may have come from pepperoni on pizzas produced at a General Mills plant in Ohio, the suburban Minneapolis-based company said.
…

The company asks consumers to throw away recalled pizzas. They can get replacements by clipping the bar code from the box and mailing it with their name and address to Totino’s/Jeno’s, P.O. Box 200 — Pizza, Minneapolis, MN 55440-0200.

Symptoms of E. coli can include stomach cramps and diarrhea. People typically are ill for two to five days but can develop complications including kidney failure.

Recalled:

• Totino’s Party Supreme, 42800-10700
• Totino’s Three Meat, 42800-10800
• Totino’s Pepperoni, 42800-11400
• Totino’s Pepperoni, 42800-92114
• Totino’s Classic Pepperoni, 42800-11402
• Totino’s Pepperoni Trio, 42800-72157
• Totino’s Party Combo, 42800-11600
• Totino’s Combo, 42800-92116
• Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Supreme, 35300-00561
• Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Pepperoni, 35300-00572
• Jeno’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Combo, 35300-00576

Note that they didn’t make the suspect pepperoni, but they aren’t going to tell us who did, so we don’t know if they were supplying other people. I make my own pepperoni from time to time and don’t understand why the E. coli isn’t killed in the process. You cook the stuff for hours. It’s basically hamburger, salt, and spices mixed together and oven roasted all day.

8 comments

1 hipparchia { 11.01.07 at 11:45 pm }

a guess: they sliced the cooked pepperoni with contaminated machinery.

2 Bryan { 11.01.07 at 11:53 pm }

That is possible. It’s also possible the people handling the finished product also handled the raw hamburger without changing their gloves or aprons.

If the pepperoni is the problem, we need to know who made the pepperoni.

3 cookie jill { 11.02.07 at 12:17 am }

They’re not naming names.

4 Bryan { 11.02.07 at 12:54 am }

Maybe they are concerned about being sued if it turns out to be something else, but the pepperoni seems to be their guess.

5 Steve Bates { 11.02.07 at 1:38 am }

It occurs to me that depending on the method of infection, other kinds of pizza may also be at risk. I have several in the freezer, but all were bought a couple of months ago… and they don’t have pepperoni on them.

I long for the old days when one could at least imagine the food supply was safe. Maybe it wasn’t, but we only occasionally heard about the problems we seem to hear about every week or two these days. I hope all you carnivores are burning your hamburgers to a crisp; I’d hate to lose any of you.

6 whig { 11.02.07 at 3:05 am }

Spinach is no safer, Steve.

7 Bryan { 11.02.07 at 11:01 am }

The waste run-off from the factory farms is infecting everything. Grain feeding is a known health hazard and needs to be stopped, as that is the only way of eliminating the E. coli variant that is causing the problems. Antibiotic application only guarantees a nastier version will develop.

8 Steve Bates { 11.02.07 at 5:08 pm }

whig, you won’t get an argument from me there. I wash the (expletive) out of all my green leafy vegetables. Who knows; it might even help.