And on the industry’s own initiative, Costco reached a new agreement with a major meat supplier that would allow Costco to test that company’s shipments of trimmings for E. coli before they are ground into hamburger, which Costco believes is a critical food safety step, and one that few other companies perform.
(From a DinersJournal Blog posting) The Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, responded to the article by saying what happened to Stephanie Smith — the now 23-year-old dance instructor who became paralyzed after eating a hamburger tainted by E. coli — was “unacceptable and tragic,†and vowed to press on with initiatives to reduce the incidence of pathogen contamination. Several pieces of legislation were introduced in Congress, including a bill by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York that would require hamburger grinding companies to test for deadly E. coli. And on the industry’s own initiative, Costco reached a new agreement with a major meat supplier that would allow Costco to test that company’s shipments of trimmings for E. coli before they are ground into hamburger, which Costco believes is a critical food safety step, and one that few other companies perform.
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/q-a-with-michael-moss-round-one/
