CALGARY – Health officials have issued a recall notice after E. coli was found in a number of beef and veal products in Canada, including some sold by the online meal delivery service HelloFresh in the western provinces.
On Wednesday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a recall notice for over 40 beef products that were mainly distributed to restaurants and were never meant for the supermarket.
However, two of the items on the recall list may have been delivered right to some consumers' doors.
Two different-sized packages of lean ground beef, sent to HelloFresh accounts in Alberta, B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan, have also been included.
The agency says the advisory covers 250 gram packages of beef that have a best before date of September 12, 2019 and 500 gram packages that have a best before date of June 30, 2019 and September 12, 2019.
The deliveries would have taken place between June 16 and 20, 2019 and September 1 to 4 and 22 to 25, 2019.
There have been no reported illnesses associated with the beef recall.
The CFIA advises all people who have bought recalled products to return them to where they bought them from.
HelloFresh has issued a statement in regards to the CFIA recall, saying the concern stems from possible cross-contamination at their supplier's facility.
"HelloFresh has not received reports of any illnesses linked to this product, and our investigation has determined that raw material used for HelloFresh was tested in line with regulatory requirements," said Jonathan Motha-Pollock, PR manager for HelloFresh Canada.
Motha-Pollock says the company has already reached out to all of its customers affected by the recall.
"Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve asked anyone who may still have the impacted product in their possession to please dispose of it," he says. "HelloFresh apologizes for any inconvenience, and is refunding the cost of the meal, as well as applying an additional meal credit to the accounts of impacted customers."
