News Release

Pilgrim's Pride Corporation Recalls Chicken Breast Nugget Products due to Possible Foreign Matter Contamination

Class II Recall014-2020

Health Risk: LowJun 28, 2020

Congressional and Public Affairs

Maribel Alonso

(202) 720-9113

FSISpress@usda.gov

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2020 – Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, a Waco, Texas establishment, is recalling approximately 59,800 pounds of fully cooked chicken breast nugget products that may be contaminated with extraneous materials, specifically flexible rubber material, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The frozen ready-to-eat (RTE) chicken breast nugget items were produced on May 6, 2020. The following products are subject to recall [View Labels (PDF Only)] :

4-lb. plastic bag packages containing “Pilgrim’s FULLY COOKED CHICKEN BREAST NUGGETS,” with a Best-By date of 06 MAY 2021 and lot code of 0127 printed on the retail package. Product cases contain lot codes 0127105009, 0127105010, 0127105011, 0127105012, 0127105013, 0127105014, 0127105015, or 0127105016 printed on the box.

The products subject to recall bear establishment number “P-20728” printed on individual retail packages as well as product cases. These items were shipped to retail locations in Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Texas.

The problem was discovered after the firm received a consumer complaint reporting rubber pieces in the chicken breast nuggets product.

There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider.

FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers’ freezers. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.

FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers.

Consumers with questions about the recall can contact Ed Tyrrell, Consumer Relations Manager for Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, at (800) 321-1470. Members of the media with questions about the recall can contact Nikki Richardson, Director of Communications for Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, at (970) 506-8028.

Consumers with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) or live chat via Ask USDA from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Consumers can also browse food safety messages at Ask USDA or send a question via email to MPHotline@usda.gov. For consumers that need to report a problem with a meat, poultry, or egg product, the online Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System can be accessed 24 hours a day at https://foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov/eCCF/.

I am not involved in the food industry at all, but I've learned much from a close friend who is a professional in standards-certification internationally.

There are two things that really stand out to me about the post above.

- One, the farther away your meat source comes from, even domestically (in-country), the greater the risk. Meat processing plants are huge on an unreal scale. Village-sized. And all it takes is one single process line to be imperfectly cleaned for disaster to strike. This is why I buy steaks/ground beef and pork and chicken cuts that are either done in-store (my grocery store has a butcher, cutting steaks from quarters of beef) or from a plant that is at least in my province or close by. It's SURPRISINGLY easy to do.

- Two, no matter what goes wrong in the North American (USA/Canada) food processing/distribution network, it's a million percent better than almost anywhere else. We can actually trust our food, for the most part. Outside of developed Europe, the standards are low to non-existent.

The landlady for one of the rooms I rented when I was in college was a retired USDA food inspector. She sometimes stopped by, bringing doughnuts to join me for coffee. One day she recounted an experience at one of the famous hot dog producers. While she was watching, a worker pitchforked a bale of frozen manure into the mix. She had to condemn the entire batch. Not because the manure would be dangerous with all of the high heat processing of hot dogs, but because it was not listed among the ingredients on the package....

Yup, as regulated as we are in North America, bad things happen too much.

Ground beef is the thing that gets me. Americans seem to buy 'chubs' of hamburger (plastic tubes, pinched at the ends) that is made A) from a cow slaughtered in South Dakota, then B) shipped a thousand miles as hanging beef to, say, C) an Arkansas beef processor who grinds it in one of 30 meat grinders it has, and it's packaged there for shipping to D) your grocer's freezer where you buy it.

I mean, WTF?! There are SO MANY CHANCES there for contamination, it's insane. I would never buy a shipped 'chub' of hamburger if I could help it.

I live in a small town with an international chain grocery (IGA) store. It's not big, just an average grocery store with a butcher. But the hamburger I buy? It's ground by a guy grinding it 10 feet away from me, on a machine I see him clean at the end of the day. I trust that meat, it was ground yesterday or today, never frozen, processed from a side of beef from a cow that was raised in my province. I just don't trust the American method. But then, Canada has huge plants like the one Jesus mentioned... and I try to avoid eating their products.

I like to buy my meat from the local butcher, but I do have a stock of Keystone canned meats just in case. I have bought the tube burger before. Not wild about it. 80/20 is far too greasy. Upsets my stomach too, even drained and rinsed. Meijer (big box chain) also has a meat department, but their burger causes me gastrointestinal distress, too.

jamiepan (imported) wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:21 pm Yup, as regulated as we are in North America, bad things happen too much.

Ground beef is the thing that gets me. Americans seem to buy 'chubs' of hamburger (plastic tubes, pinched at the ends) that is made A) from a cow slaughtered in South Dakota, then B) shipped a thousand miles as hanging beef to, say, C) an Arkansas beef processor who grinds it in one of 30 meat grinders it has, and it's packaged there for shipping to D) your grocer's freezer where you buy it.

I mean, WTF?! There are SO MANY CHANCES there for contamination, it's insane. I would never buy a shipped 'chub' of hamburger if I could help it.

I live in a small town with an international chain grocery (IGA) store. It's not big, just an average grocery store with a butcher. But the hamburger I buy? It's ground by a guy grinding it 10 feet away from me, on a machine I see him clean at the end of the day. I trust that meat, it was ground yesterday or today, never frozen, processed from a side of beef from a cow that was raised in my province. I just don't trust the American method. But then, Canada has huge plants like the one Jesus mentioned... and I try to avoid eating their products.

Let me know if y'all are ever in the mood for nearly ten inches of healthy, thick, swinging prime cut.

...meat grinder is gonna cost extra.

rogerwpbfl (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:48 am Let me know if y'all are ever in the mood for nearly ten inches of healthy, thick, swinging prime cut.

...meat grinder is gonna cost extra.

You sound JUST like my butcher.

I'd just grill it whole with peppers and onions. Yumm

jamiepan (imported) wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:21 pm Yup, as regulated as we are in North America, bad things happen too much.

Not as regulated as you would think. I worked for a fire sprinkler company and we were in an apple plant for over a year replacing their entire system. They made everything from apple juice to apple sauce to apple snacks (different days, different things). Now, this was fresh apples in one end of the factory and the product out the other.

Water of every kind leaked everywhere (most of the plant had been there since the 1920s). You could walk into the "clean" areas without smocks. Inside the plant, in the summer, it would regularly get past 110° because of the 600° steam pipes, with just big fans to cool employees. One guy actually collapsed and died (this happened after we left) from heat exhaustion (though he actually died from the 2 heart attacks and one massive stroke he had afterwards because his body temp went to 108°). Flies, bugs, yicky bugs, regular sight. QC, they didn't exist. They wanted the product on the belt, on the truck, and on the road as fast as humanly possible, consequences and injuries be damned. The person that died, his family is suing the company (and rightly so) for millions.

Now, this wasn't a private company, private product. It was labeled as Great Value (Walmart), Musselman's, Tree Top, Kroger (both regular and "organic", same line) and other companies. Thankfully not Motts, love them! We were there every single day, sometimes on Saturdays, we never once saw a local inspector, a state inspector, an FDA inspector, a USDA inspector, or an OSHA inspector (and they were expanding, BIG TIME) do a single inspection. Actually, with the multiple chicken, beef, and apple plants that exist in that county, there is ZERO local and state inspectors for that county. None. In the county I live (just to the north), with only two plants of such kind, we have one local inspector. Even with regulations, companies and plants can get out of inspections. Politics and money play a BIG part.

Chesleyt (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:50 pm I'd just grill it whole with peppers and onions. Yumm

WHY does that get me hard?!??

I swear my dick must be the dumbest ever