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Recalled beef has likely reached 68-percent of nation

Posted at 5:48 PM, Mar 07, 2014
and last updated 2014-03-07 18:32:40-05

(CNN) — Beef recalled earlier this year from a California meat producer may have reached 35 states and Guam, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

Thousands of retailers have been added to a list of companies that could have received beef products from the producer, Rancho Feeding Corp., since the February recall, the USDA said.

“The retail list has been growing as more customers have been notified,” USDA spokesman Adam Tarr told CNN Friday. “The list could expand.”

The USDA will continue to update the list so that the affected products can be removed from commerce, he said.

Rancho Feeding Corp., based in Petaluma, California, made headlines in February with its recall of 8.7 million pounds of meat products, which followed a recall of more than 40,000 pounds of meat products in January.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said the meat involved in the February recall came from “diseased and unsound” animals that weren’t properly inspected.

“Thus, the products are adulterated, because they are unsound, unwholesome or otherwise are unfit for human food and must be removed from commerce,” the government agency reported in February.

The USDA had not received any reports of illness because of the recalled Rancho meat as of a statement issued in February. But the agency called it a “Class I recall,” meaning it is a “health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”

The wide range of products subject to recall included 30-pound boxes of beef lips, mountain oysters and sweetbreads, as well as 40-pound boxes of veal bones and 60-pound boxes of veal trim.

The recalled products were produced and shipped between January 1, 2013, and January 7, 2014. The USDA mark of inspection on them has “EST. 527” and their case code number ends in 3 or 4.

After Rancho Feeding Corp. made the recall, Nestle USA issued a voluntary recall in February of some types of Hot Pockets.

Nestle said it had determined that “a small quantity of meat from Rancho was used at Nestle’s Chatsworth, California, production operation,” which is devoted entirely to Hot Pockets sandwiches.

The affected Hot Pockets products were the two-pack box of Croissant Crust Philly Steak and Cheese, and three different pack sizes of Philly Steak and Cheese.

Follow current recall information here: http://wtvr.com/tag/recall/

CNN’s Shannon Travis, Greg Botelho, Janet DiGiacomo, Ed Payne and Chandler Friedman contributed to this report.

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