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Schools await orders for suspect beef
Smaller batches of meat can be tossed, official says
| Tuesday, Feb 19 2008 10:05 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Feb 20 2008 7:20 AM
Schools around the county are awaiting word as to what to do with hundreds of cases of suspect beef.
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Guy Shaw, chief of the food, land and water division of the Kern County Environmental Health Services Department, advises schools with 50 cases or fewer to treat it with soap and throw it out on trash-pickup day. Bigger loads should be taken to landfills, he said.
The soap would make it unappealing to those who might look for food in Dumpsters.
Maricopa Unified School District is sitting on a couple of boxes of ground beef affected by Sunday's recall of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company products.
Luckily the district that feeds about 340 students had a mistakenly large delivery of chicken to take its place, said Debbie Pomisino, administrative secretary.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture placed a hold on Hallmark/Westland meat in January after a Humane Society investigation showed inhumane treatment of cows at the Chino plant.
On Sunday, meat produced in the past two years was recalled. The investigation, which is ongoing, found the company did not notify veterinarians of sick cows as required.
Lakeside Union School District didn't get the potentially tainted meat directly but its vendor did, Superintendent Nick Kouklis said. The district didn't stop serving meat because of vendor assurances it was using a different product.
The same was true for Panama-Buena Vista Union School District, except it kept all beef off the menu to ease parents' minds.
"Some vendors offered other products and I thought, 'No way,'" said Marilou Onaindia, supervisor of nutrition services.
The Bakersfield City School District is holding about 1,500 cases until it hears which are safe, said spokesman Steve Gabbitas.
Even districts not impacted held off serving meat.
The Kern High School District replaced some 200 hamburgers served daily at each high school with other food such as chicken patties and pasta bowls, said Sharon Briel, food service director. Hamburgers will be back on the menu next week.
The California Department of Education said schools will soon get details on reimbursement.
Schools are reimbursed for not only the meat but the transportation, processing and destruction of foods, said Brenda Robinson, head of food services at BCSD.
State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, introduced an amendment to a bill asking the state to reimburse schools and then recoup its expenses from the federal government through legal action he suggests would be taken against the company.