Buffalo-Owned Topps Meats Closing Due to Recall

By Jonathan D. Epstein, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

Oct. 5–Topps Meat Co., the nation’s largest maker of frozen hamburgers, has shut down its New Jersey factory and is going out of business, just a week after issuing the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history.

The Elizabeth, N.J.-based meatpacker, which is owned by Buffalo private equity firm Strategic Investments & Holdings, said the closing was effective today. The company said it could not overcome the financial impact of the recall, which was prompted by the discovery of bacteria in some hamburger patties.

“This is tragic for all concerned,” Anthony D’Urso, chief operating officer for the company and a member of the founding family, said in a press release. “In one week, we have gone from the largest U.S. manufacturer of frozen hamburgers to a company that cannot overcome the economic reality of a recall this large.”

The company declined to make D’Urso or any other company officials available for comment. Executives at Strategic Investments could not be reached.

Strategic Investments bought a controlling interest in Topps in May 2003. Topps management had day-to-day oversight, but Strategic Investments principal and prominent local business and civic leader Robert D. Goia served as chairman from the purchase until late last year when he became president of the John R. Oishei Foundation.

Topps startled its customers on Sept. 25 with an initial recall of 332,000 pounds of frozen hamburgers that may have been contaminated with the E. coli bacteria. It shocked the nation four days later when it expanded the recall to 21.7 million pounds of ground beef products sold in stores around the country, including in Tops Markets.

The meat company and supermarket chain are unrelated.

To date, 30 people in eight states … Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania … have fallen ill since July 5. At least 15 were hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

jepstein@buffnews.com

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