Almost 10 Million lbs of chicken & beef recalled from Aldi, Trader Joe’s, HEB, Walmart, etc.

[FrenzyTickles]

https://www.eatingwell.com/recalled...roducts-at-trader-joe-s-aldi-and-more-8727075

Almost 10 Million Pounds of Recalled Chicken & Beef Found In Products at Trader Joe's, Aldi and More​

The meat and poultry products were distributed to restaurants and grocery stores across the nation.

By
Camryn Alexa Wimberly

Published on October 11, 2024

PHOTO:
GETTY IMAGES
BrucePac has recalled over nine million pounds of prepackaged meat and poultry products due to possible listeria contamination, according to the Food and Drug Adminstration.1



The impacted items were produced from June 19, 2024, to October 8, 2024 and sent to restaurants and institutions. The impacted poultry and meat are also in premade salads and casseroles sold in grocery stores like Trader Joe's, H-E-B, Walmart and Aldi. Here’s a list of the specific products that have been recalled:

• H-E-B Chicken Broccoli & Rice Casserole, with a “best by” date of “080925”
• H-E-B Texas Ranch Chicken Casserole, with a “best by” date of “082725”
• H-E-B Texas Ranch Style Chicken with Ranchero Beans & Mexican Style Rice, with a “best by” date of “090325”
• Trader Joe’s Lemon Chicken & Arugula Salad, with a “best by” date between 9/09/24 and 10/14/24
• Trader Joe’s Tarragon Chicken Salad Wrap, with a “best by” date between 9/09/24 and 10/14/24
• Trader Joe’s Turkey Club Wrap, with a “best by” date between 9/09/24 and 10/14/24
• Fresh Express Gourmet Cafe Salads Chicken Caesar (6.3oz) with a “use-by” date prior to 10/23/2024
• Fresh Express Gourmet Cafe Salads Santa Fe Style (6.3oz) with a “use-by” date prior to 10/11/2024
• Little Salad Bar Santa Fe Style Salad (6.3oz) with a “use-by” date prior to 10/16/2024
• Marketside Caesar Salad With Chicken (6.25 oz) with a “use-by” date prior to 10/19/2024
• Marketside Santa Fe Style Salad With Chicken (6.35 oz) with “use-by” date prior to 10/15/2024
• Marketside Caesar Salad With Chicken (12 oz) with a “use-by” date prior to 10/13/2024
• 
  
• Marketside Southwest Style Salad with Chicken (11.75 oz), with a use-by date prior to 10/13/2024
• Little Salad Bar Chicken Caesar Salad (6.3 oz) with a use-by date prior to 10/20/2024
• HMS Chicken Alfredo with use-by dates between 8/25/2025 and 10/8/2025

Routine testing was conducted by the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which ultimately confirmed that the ready-to-eat products contained listeria. Symptoms of listeria infections include fever, vomiting, nausea, headaches and neck stiffness. Elderly people, young children, those with weakened immune systems and people who are pregnant are most at risk of life-threatening illness due to listeria.


Sausage Recalled in Canada Due to Glove Pieces Found in Products


Fortunately, there have been no reported illnesses due to the contamination. If you experience symptoms of listeria infection after consuming any of the impacted meat, you should contact your healthcare provider.



If you have purchased any of the listed products, you are advised to return them to the place of purchase. Restaurants and other establishments are also urged to discontinue using these products and to discard them or return them as well. If you have any questions regarding the recall you can contact Jeff Golangco, VP of Business Development at BrucePac, at (503) 874-3000 or call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at (888) 674-6854.



There’s a Nationwide Recall on Fudge Due to Mold Contamination—Here's What to Know

SOURCES

 

[Cosmo_ac]

Is it just me, or does there seem to be a food recall every other week? It seems like this has been a constant thing for...it feels like half a year at this point. Just me? Is anybody else noting this?

 

[Titillating 2.0]

Good to know thanks for sharing, and I do feel like there’s been more and more food recalls not to mention an overall lowering in quality

 

[BlasterMaster]

Is it just me, or does there seem to be a food recall every other week? It seems like this has been a constant thing for...it feels like half a year at this point. Just me? Is anybody else noting this?

Blame the deregulation of the meat industry. Seriously. Some states have passed pretty bizzare laws to prevent inspectors from fining places that do bad stuff. Like forcing state and federal meat inspectors to wear actual paper bags over their heads. Yeah...I'm not kidding...that's actual law. Even if the inspectors find a violation, the maximum fine they can impose is only a few thousand dollars or such (which is penny cash to the industry).

 

[Morning Scifi]

I doubt deregulation is the culprit when agriculture overall is one of the most regulated industries in the country. The employment of migrant labor might have negative effects on quality, however.

 

[BlasterMaster]

The employment of migrant labor might have negative effects on quality, however.

(sigh)...why is it half the citizens of my nation can't stop spitting on the people who come here to pick our avacados?

 

[Morning Scifi]

Because some of them that come here do far less innocuous things in addition to that.

 

[Cosmo_ac]

I doubt deregulation is the culprit when agriculture overall is one of the most regulated industries in the country. The employment of migrant labor might have negative effects on quality, however.

How?

 

[Morning Scifi]

How?

For starters, we don't know what percentage of the migrants are criminals. We already know that a lot of people who come here illegally do so while fleeing prosecution for various crimes. There's really no telling what the total number is, but the government recently confirmed that over 400,000 criminally convicted immigrants are on what's described as ICE's "non-detained docket." In other words, these are people that were either convicted of crimes here or in another country and are not currently detained by ICE. Some of them are currently in prison, others were not prioritized for detention, and others are simply not yet found by ICE.

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigati...homicide-living-freely-us-ice-data-rcna173125

Convicted felons aren't typically known for ethical behavior, and this can manifest in their quality of work. That being said, it is true that sometimes people are falsely convicted of felonies by corrupt authorities. This can be just as true for the US as it is for Latin America.

 

[Cosmo_ac]

For starters, we don't know what percentage of the migrants are criminals. We already know that a lot of people who come here illegally do so while fleeing prosecution for various crimes. There's really no telling what the total number is, but the government recently confirmed that over 400,000 criminally convicted immigrants are on what's described as ICE's "non-detained docket." In other words, these are people that were either convicted of crimes here or in another country and are not currently detained by ICE. Some of them are currently in prison, others were not prioritized for detention, and others are simply not yet found by ICE.

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigati...homicide-living-freely-us-ice-data-rcna173125

Convicted felons aren't typically known for ethical behavior, and this can manifest in their quality of work. That being said, it is true that sometimes people are falsely convicted of felonies by corrupt authorities. This can be just as true for the US as it is for Latin America.

And all these convicted felons have made their way into the various organizations, taken control of the quality departments, and because of...less ethical behavior, have caused all these companies to release tainted products? That's your theory?

 

[BlasterMaster]

Because some of them that come here do far less innocuous things in addition to that.

I highly doubt a great deal of the men, women, and children who come to this nation to work hard for substandard wages in hard environmental/working conditions are in fact up to sinister ends. If anything, a great deal of them are fleeing violence and poverty in their own nations and coming here for the promise of a better life.

 

[Morning Scifi]

And all these convicted felons have made their way into the various organizations, taken control of the quality departments, and because of...less ethical behavior, have caused all these companies to release tainted products? That's your theory?

No. It doesn't take a particularly complex conspiracy to achieve poor results in quality if your labor quality is low to begin with. To be fair, American agriculture in general is rather primitive when compared to the highly automated and sophisticated system that countries like the Netherlands have with regard to farming. They are far more efficient at farming than the US precisely because they aren't dependent on cheap labor. They instead employ more automation and mostly workers that have a higher level of skill.

Any industry dependent on cheap or migrant labor is going to suffer in quality overall. We see this in construction in the US as well.

 

[Morning Scifi]

I highly doubt a great deal of the men, women, and children who come to this nation to work hard for substandard wages in hard environmental/working conditions are in fact up to sinister ends. If anything, a great deal of them are fleeing violence and poverty in their own nations and coming here for the promise of a better life.

I'm not saying most are criminals. However, it doesn't take a high percentage of them doing criminal things to make things difficult for our society. We already have a surplus of native born criminals in this country.

 

[FrenzyTickles]

The irony is that the billionaire immigrants are allowed to do much more damage to our economy and other facets of our society, between owning highly impactful companies of all sorts, and influencing others….

It’s not the hardworking refugees we need to worry about. It’s the poison from the top tier, either chemically for physical production benefits, or BullS*t propaganda to keep themselves & their cronies in power.

 

[Morning Scifi]

The irony is that the billionaire immigrants are allowed to do much more damage to our economy and other facets of our society, between owning highly impactful companies of all sorts, and influencing others….

It’s not the hardworking refugees we need to worry about. It’s the poison from the top tier, either chemically for physical production benefits, or BullS*t propaganda to keep themselves & their cronies in power.

It is true that foreign billionaires can do a lot of damage to society, like George Soros.

 

[FrenzyTickles]

It is true that foreign billionaires can do a lot of damage to society, like George Soros.

Really? I don’t recall him paying out 3/4 of a billion $$$$$ because his news station was caught lying, like Rupert Murdoch's, or telling people they’ll now endure hardships, like Elon Musk… who asked about solving world hunger and ignored the answer, easily within his means… Speaking of food…

 

[Morning Scifi]

Really? I don’t recall him paying out 3/4 of a billion $$$$$ because his news station was caught lying, like Rupert Murdoch's, or telling people they’ll now endure hardships, like Elon Musk… who asked about solving world hunger and ignored the answer, easily within his means… Speaking of food…

Soros prefers to fund migrant crises both here and in Europe via his various Open Society Foundations. He likes to call it social justice despite it being human trafficking.

Even if Musk gave away all of his wealth to fight world hunger, it wouldn't take long for the problem to arise again. This is because certain parts of the world are managed extremely poorly, between government corruption and cultural ignorance. For example, there have been multiple cases where certain African communities that were given proper water wells allowed the wells to fall into disrepair after a short while. It goes back to the "teach a man to fish" concept.

At best, Musk could fund efforts to implement better agricultural methods in the developing world and train the associated people how to manage these systems. Ultimately, the ability of a society to properly feed itself in the long term depends on the people themselves, not a billionaire.

 

[Cosmo_ac]

No. It doesn't take a particularly complex conspiracy to achieve poor results in quality if your labor quality is low to begin with. To be fair, American agriculture in general is rather primitive when compared to the highly automated and sophisticated system that countries like the Netherlands have with regard to farming. They are far more efficient at farming than the US precisely because they aren't dependent on cheap labor. They instead employ more automation and mostly workers that have a higher level of skill.

Any industry dependent on cheap or migrant labor is going to suffer in quality overall. We see this in construction in the US as well.

But heavily depending on migrant labor for farming in something that has been going on for a very long time. This is nothing new. Also, these migrants tend to work at the base level, doing the lowest level jobs, a far cry from the people who actually check the quality of the product that goes out.

 

[primetime]

Every single time I see folks blame migrant workers, I have to laugh. Mainly because they are dead wrong. Migrant laborers have been used throughout the history of time. From forced slavery, to migrants coming to work voluntarily, it has ALWAYS BEEN DONE. Now it is a problem?

Besides all that, here is one simple question. If these migrants are the problem, then why were they hired? Before you answer with nonsense, really think about that question. WHY. WERE. THEY. HIRED? I mean, surely a company doesn't want to put out bad product, right? So , why?

 

[Morning Scifi]

But heavily depending on migrant labor for farming in something that has been going on for a very long time. This is nothing new. Also, these migrants tend to work at the base level, doing the lowest level jobs, a far cry from the people who actually check the quality of the product that goes out.

True, the regulators aren't migrants, although the conditions that they are charged with observing have gradually worsened due to a higher dependence on migrants than in decades past. It's not that migrant labor in agriculture is new, it's that agriculture used to have more of a mix of migrant labor and citizen labor. Also, water restrictions on agriculture have gotten worse in places like California, which has contributed to things like listeria outbreaks as water is recycled more.

 

[Morning Scifi]

Every single time I see folks blame migrant workers, I have to laugh. Mainly because they are dead wrong. Migrant laborers have been used throughout the history of time. From forced slavery, to migrants coming to work voluntarily, it has ALWAYS BEEN DONE. Now it is a problem?

Besides all that, here is one simple question. If these migrants are the problem, then why were they hired? Before you answer with nonsense, really think about that question. WHY. WERE. THEY. HIRED? I mean, surely a company doesn't want to put out bad product, right? So , why?

The reason they're hired is because corporations in these industries care more about cutting labor costs than putting out a good product. The quality of our food overall has declined, although admittedly, migrant labor is only part of the problem. Other issues are connected to genetic modification of crops, antibiotics/vaccines and hormones used in animals, and the water recycling I mentioned in the other post.

In short, migrant labor is used because we don't have functional border security. Our agricultural sector should operate more like the one in the Netherlands that I mentioned before, and it could, if we'd actually enforce border security and stop subsidizing agriculture with tax money. A secure border coupled with a completely free market in agriculture would result in most farms relying on more automation. That would result in fewer quality issues. Fewer restrictions on water usage would also lessen the chance of outbreaks.

 

[primetime]

Are you following your own logic? You admit that corporations care more about cutting costs than putting out a good product. Is that the migrants' fault, or the corporation. I guess you don't eat crops from the United States because a good portion of it is handled by migrant labor. Contrary to a stupid belief, they are not taking jobs from Americans, Americans do not want to work these types of jobs. You get rid of migrants and our agriculture collapses.

Putting the blame on migrant workers is absolutely ridiculous. These people know nothing BUT hard work. They work hard every sing day for little wages. They are put in bad situations from people exploiting them, not because they don't know what they are doing. ALL of the issues are from the companies. They are the ones who want "deregulation" so they can make more money. So if they are not going to abide by regulations to ensure crops are safe, you expect the migrant workers to do it? Come on, you know better than that.

 

[Cosmo_ac]

True, the regulators aren't migrants, although the conditions that they are charged with observing have gradually worsened due to a higher dependence on migrants than in decades past. It's not that migrant labor in agriculture is new, it's that agriculture used to have more of a mix of migrant labor and citizen labor. Also, water restrictions on agriculture have gotten worse in places like California, which has contributed to things like listeria outbreaks as water is recycled more.

If conditions have gotten worse, I don't see it being a case of an increase in migrants. Migrant workers, especially seasonal ones, one fill a job that in most cases, others cannot or will not do, because of the harsh working conditions, living conditions, and/or low pay. If you want to lay the blame, lay it on the businesses that higher them to reduce costs. While a smaller business might have little choice (a whole other tangent there) multi-million and billion dollar companies have no such excuses, other than profits.

" In short, migrant labor is used because we don't have functional border security. Our agricultural sector should operate more like the one in the Netherlands that I mentioned before, and it could, if we'd actually enforce border security and stop subsidizing agriculture with tax money. A secure border coupled with a completely free market in agriculture would result in most farms relying on more automation. That would result in fewer quality issues. Fewer restrictions on water usage would also lessen the chance of outbreaks."

Sorry, can't get the above to quote right.

Anyhow, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this.

Legal migrant labor has nothing to do with border security. Illegal migrant labor once again has to do with businesses and business practices. If these companies did not hire these people, you wouldn't have as many coming into the country. However, they are, and many businesses know they are hiring illegals to save money. Start with these groups facing real punishments for this activity, and you'll see some changes.

 

[Morning Scifi]

Are you following your own logic? You admit that corporations care more about cutting costs than putting out a good product. Is that the migrants' fault, or the corporation. I guess you don't eat crops from the United States because a good portion of it is handled by migrant labor. Contrary to a stupid belief, they are not taking jobs from Americans, Americans do not want to work these types of jobs. You get rid of migrants and our agriculture collapses.

Putting the blame on migrant workers is absolutely ridiculous. These people know nothing BUT hard work. They work hard every sing day for little wages. They are put in bad situations from people exploiting them, not because they don't know what they are doing. ALL of the issues are from the companies. They are the ones who want "deregulation" so they can make more money. So if they are not going to abide by regulations to ensure crops are safe, you expect the migrant workers to do it? Come on, you know better than that.

This isn't a binary situation in terms of factors. Most complex issues aren't. The reality is that, yes, corporations are at fault, but so is the labor. Construction is the same. The reason new construction often sucks in the US is that builders are unethical and their labor is lacking in skill. Agriculture can be the same, although the ethics of the agricultural industry are less problematic than that of construction. There is a third factor that creates a lot of the problems in agriculture, and that is government. That's again manifested in the water policies I mentioned but also comes in the form of distorting the market with regard to subsidies and other interventions.

I do acknowledge that a lot of the food I consume is handled by migrants. I've never said otherwise. However, other than buying locally from small farms, you don't have much other choice but to do that in this country. It doesn't have to stay that way, however. Citizens tend to avoid these jobs only because the wages are very low. Also, we don't employ as much technology in the industry as we should. Various other countries take a higher tech approach, which actually can be cheaper in the long run than depending on cheap labor. A higher tech approach would involve fewer workers but jobs with higher pay, so they would be more appealing to citizens.

The dependence on cheap labor is largely a consequence of the market intervention by our government coupled with a lack of border security. As I mentioned before, a proper border policy coupled with an actual free market would force agriculture to modernize with more technology and would create better paying jobs.

So, I want to clarify that I'm not putting all of the blame on migrants, but I'm not absolving them of blame either. Are many hard workers? Sure. But that itself doesn't always equal high quality results or ethical behavior. And while it is true that they are being exploited, plenty of them exploit the tools used for this system. For example, a large portion of the illegal ones do pay income taxes, but it's with SS info of other people. That same info can be used to take out loans in other people's names. So exploitation comes in many forms. The reality in all this is that it's a cycle of exploitation in multiple directions. Perhaps, we can agree that it would be preferable to end this cycle.

Deregulation isn't the problem. The regulations that created this situation coupled with a lack of a functional border policy are the actual sources. The corporations tend to abide by certain easier to enforce regulations (like the water ones) while ignoring ones that are less easy for the government to enforce. However, the prioritization of compliance would shift if, instead, corporations received no subsidies and had very little access to cheap labor. In that situation, their business model would properly modernize. If, simultaneously, they were less restricted in the amount of water they can use, they would have less incentive to recycle water, which would result in cleaner operations and fewer health risks to the public. Compounding this, higher quality labor and more advanced equipment being used with the modernized business model I mentioned would also result in a better product brought to market. This would make it easier for the government to enforce any safety related regulations, since the quality of the product would already be better to begin with.

 

[Morning Scifi]

If conditions have gotten worse, I don't see it being a case of an increase in migrants. Migrant workers, especially seasonal ones, one fill a job that in most cases, others cannot or will not do, because of the harsh working conditions, living conditions, and/or low pay. If you want to lay the blame, lay it on the businesses that higher them to reduce costs. While a smaller business might have little choice (a whole other tangent there) multi-million and billion dollar companies have no such excuses, other than profits.

" In short, migrant labor is used because we don't have functional border security. Our agricultural sector should operate more like the one in the Netherlands that I mentioned before, and it could, if we'd actually enforce border security and stop subsidizing agriculture with tax money. A secure border coupled with a completely free market in agriculture would result in most farms relying on more automation. That would result in fewer quality issues. Fewer restrictions on water usage would also lessen the chance of outbreaks."

Sorry, can't get the above to quote right.

Anyhow, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this.

Legal migrant labor has nothing to do with border security. Illegal migrant labor once again has to do with businesses and business practices. If these companies did not hire these people, you wouldn't have as many coming into the country. However, they are, and many businesses know they are hiring illegals to save money. Start with these groups facing real punishments for this activity, and you'll see some changes.

As I mentioned in the post just before this one, I agree that corporations are partially to blame for this. I just don't put the blame solely on them, just like I don't put it solely on migrants.

While it is true that we have legal migrant labor in addition to illegal migrant labor, the percentage of the migrant labor that is illegal is substantially higher than it used to be. I suppose I should have clarified before this post why I mentioned border policies to begin with, but that is the primary reason I did. I also totally agree that businesses which hire illegal labor should be punished. Unfortunately, neither party here seems serious about that.

Legal migrant labor is a different can of worms, but now that we're on that topic, this has several issues of its own. Legal migrant labor in general has a wage depression effect on many industries. Construction is a great example of this, but it is relevant to agriculture as well. As I mentioned in the post just before this one, better paying jobs would exist in agriculture if the industry was cut off from this labor, because it would force them to automate more. Automation and tech related jobs tend to pay better than manual labor. Instead of employing hundreds of low skill migrants, farms could employ a few dozen machine operators and technicians. Those jobs would pay better and involve less physically strenuous work. Citizens would be interested in those jobs.

As a final note, border policies are relevant even with regard to legal migrant labor, because the context here is that work visas can be more restricted.