Burgers made from fresh ground beef brisket and chuck, photographed in Toronto in May 2012.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has expanded its alert over beef products from Belmont Meats of Toronto because of possible E. coli contamination.
The federal food safety watchdog is now warning the public not to eat Sunspun bearpaw-shaped beef burgers sold at Loblaw-owned stores nationally and Compliments traditional beef burgers sold at Sobeys-owned stores in Ontario and the West.
The Sunspun beef products sold in 4.54-kilogram packages have a best-before date of Feb. 24, 2014, while the Compliments products in 1.36-kg packages have a best-before date of May 26, 2014.
The agency says there have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of the products and that it's monitoring the effectiveness of the recall.
The agency has now issued recall notices this month for a total of nine Belmont beef products over possible E. coli contamination.
The agency on Sunday warned the public not to consume Belmont uncooked lean ground beef distributed at Loblaw stores nationally in 1.6-kilogram packages with a best-before date of June 1, 2014. And a notice on Oct. 8 warned about President's Choice Beef Burgers in 4.54-kilogram packages sold nationally in Loblaws stores and Webers Bucket of Burgers sold in 1.02-kilogram packages, which may have been distributed across Canada.
Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Arlene King, said the next day there were seven confirmed and one suspected cases of E. coli in the province linked to the burgers.
In the initial Oct. 2 warning, the CFIA said there had been reported illnesses associated with the consumption of certain Compliments brand Super 8 Beef Burgers.
The eight-ounce burgers are sold frozen in packages of six (with a UPC code of 0 55742 37055 3). They were distributed in Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador in Sobeys banner stores, and might also be in Foodland, FreshCo and Price Chopper stores.