001033 NC Poultry Processor Ignores FSIS RecallOctober 8, 2000Washington - Faced with the rare refusal of a food processor to recall potentially tainted food, government regulators acted Saturday to prevent the sale of more than 31/2 tons of barbecued chickens. The Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service said the target of the recommended recall was approximately 7,640 pounds of ready-to-eat chickens that may have the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. The substance can cause listeria, an uncommon but sometimes fatal disease. The agency said it has not received any reports of illness associated with the product. When signs of the bacteria were detected, agency spokesman Christopher Church said, a recall was recommended to the processor, House of Raeford Farms Inc. of Raeford, N.C. “The company has not agreed to do that as of yet, so we notified the public and stopped movement of product that is (already) in commerce,” Church said. “We asked them to, and they declined to comply.” Normally, Church said, a company warned of possible contamination will notify distributors of the recall, either to return or destroy the merchandise. Rejecting a recall recommendation “has not happened in recent memory,” he said. A man who identified himself as a security guard and answered the telephone at the North Carolina plant said no one in authority was there Saturday and said to try again Monday. Church said FSIS agents went to places where the product was known to have been distributed to ensure that the chickens will go no further through the supply chain. The agency lacks authority to issue recalls on its own. The suspect product is House of Raeford brand “Fully Cooked BARBECUED CHICKEN,” packaged for retail sale. Labels have “P-239” inside the USDA inspection seal, and a code “18808” also appears on the packages. The agency said the chickens were produced Aug. 22 and distributed in North Carolina, Massachusetts and Arizona. Packaging date codes are 237, 241, 242, 258 and 263.
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