Steak Recall As ‘Chemical Taste’ Reported in Products

A New York-based producer of Cuban-style cured meats is recalling about 93,277 pounds of raw meats after receiving multiple complaints of a “chemical taste” in the products, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has said.

In an alert issued on Thursday, the federal agency announced that MF Meats of Falconer was recalling numerous items over the concerns, including various steak cuts, veal and pork cuts, as well as sausages and mince.

FSIS said the firm had issued the recall after receiving four complaints from restaurants supplied with some of the products, but that there had been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions to their consumption.

Newsweek approached MF Meats via email for comment on Friday.

MF Meats said that after investigating the issue, it had found that its mineral oil supplier had sent them a drum containing non-food grade seal oil that had been labeled as food grade seal oil—which is used to treat chopping boards and butchers blocks.

“The non-food grade mineral seal oil was applied to food contact surfaces and not directly to the meat products,” FSIS noted.

The various items under the recall were produced between November 26, 2023 and February 16, 2024, but display dates according to the Julian calendar, 330-365 of 2023 and 1-47 of 2024.

FSIS said the products bear the establishment number 569 and were shipped to restaurants in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The federal agency said it was “concerned that some product may be in restaurants’ refrigerators or freezers” and urged them not to serve these products. Instead, it asked that they throw the products away or return them.

The recall is just the latest related to meat products to occur this year. In mid-February, a Miami, Florida-based Cuban-style cured meats producer recalled over 9,000 pounds of ready-to-eat products after a sample was found to contain listeria, a potentially deadly bacteria.

It came amid a growing number of recalls of products containing cheese from a California dairy producer over possible listeria contamination. The contamination is thought by officials to potentially be behind an outbreak of listeria infections across the U.S.

A few days prior, an Italian charcuterie producer recalled some of its cold cuts over concerns on may have been under-processed, leaving the possibility of contamination with pathogens including salmonella.

In January, a Denmark, Wisconsin-based Polish meat producer issued a recall of over 100,000 pounds of turkey sausage which was found to contain bone fragments, following a complaint from a customer of a “minor oral injury.”