Recall Forces Topps to Fold

Topps Meat Co. on Friday said it was closing its business, six days after it was forced to issue the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history and 67 years after it first opened its doors.

The decision will cost 87 people their jobs, Topps said.

On Sept. 25, Topps began recalling frozen hamburger patties that might have been contaminated with a potentially fatal E. coli bacteria strain. The recall eventually ballooned to 21.7 million pounds of ground beef.

Thirty people in eight states had E. coli infections matching the strain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. None have died.

“This is tragic for all concerned,” said Topps Chief Operating Officer Anthony D’Urso, a member of the family that founded the company in 1940.

The recall raised questions about whether the U.S. Agriculture Department should have acted quicker to encourage a recall. On Thursday, top department officials said they would speed up warnings in the future.

Topps conceded that much of the recalled meat had already been eaten, and on Friday they expressed regret that its product had been linked to illnesses.

“We hope and pray for the full recovery of those individuals,” Mr. D’Urso said in a statement.

Topps, which halted production Sept. 26, is not the first meat company shuttered by a recall. Hudson Foods Co. closed its plant in Columbus, Neb., after it agreed in 1997 to destroy 25 million pounds of hamburger in the largest U.S. meat recall after E. coli was found in the ground beef. The plant later reopened with new owners.

Topps faces at least two lawsuits filed since the recall, one from the family of an upstate New York girl who became ill, and one seeking class-action status on behalf of all people who bought or ate the hamburgers. The family of a Florida girl who suffered kidney failure sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is among chains that sold Topps patties.

A full list of the recalled products is available at www.toppsmeat.com.

Originally published by Jeffrey Gold Associated Press.

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