Big Recall On Cooked Meat Due To Listeria, Some Sold At Big Y

If you purchased some cooked ham or pepperoni lately, you may want to read further. There is a major cooked meat recall going on now due to possible listeria contamination.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, Alexander and Hornung, a company within Perdue Premium Meat Company, Inc., initiated the recall of more than 230,000 pounds of fully cooked ham and pepperoni products that were shipped to retail stores across the nation after a product sampling detected the presence of the listeria bacteria.

Some of the retail stores that received the products include a number of Big Y supermarkets, a popular chain here in the Northeast. Listeria can cause a serious infection that kills about 260 Americans annually.

Big Y themselves issued a statement saying:

Alexander & Hornung is recalling approximately 234,391 pounds of fully cooked ham and pepperoni products that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. This recall includes random weight packages of Big Y Bone-In Ham Steaks.

The 17 products included in the recall are sold under the brand names Alexander & Hornung, Big Y, Butcher Boy, Five Star, Food Club, Garrett Valley Farms, Niman Ranch, Open Nature, and Wellshire. See the full list of the products by clicking here.

According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service(FSIS), eating foods contaminated with L. monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, which is more serious than listeria and is sometimes fatal. Symptoms include confusion, convulsions, fever, headaches, loss of balance, muscle aches, and stiff necks.

So far, there have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products, however, the concern of the FSIS is that some of these products may be in consumers' refrigerators or freezers.

If you have any of the products that are on the recall list, FSIS urges you not to consume them. Please dispose of them immediately or return them to the place of purchase.

For more info on the product recall, visit the FSIS website here.