Burger King beefs up food safety, cuts Hudson ties; E. coli scare dooms supplier relationship

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 1, 1997 by Richard L. Papernik, Mark Hamstra

MIAMI -- A recall of 25 million pounds of potentially tainted ground beef has sparked giant fast-food operator Burger King Corp. to sever long-standing ties with one of its biggest beef suppliers in an about the safety of its hamburgers.

Burger King, based here, was one of two of the nation's largest restaurant operators affected by the recall caused by a virulent form of E. coli contamination.

Golden, Colo.-based Boston Chicken Inc. also pulled the ground beef, which it uses in its meat loaf preparation, out of all restaurants that had been supplied by Hudson Foods Inc. of Rogers, Ark.

A spokeswoman said those restaurants were without the meat loaf for several days. No decision has been made on whether Boston Chicken will sever its ties with Hudson, spokeswoman Karen Rugen said.

The voluntary recall by Hudson after the severity of E. coli contamination was discovered at its plant in Columbus, Neb., was the biggest meat recall in U.S. history, according to federal officials.

Both Burger King and Golden, Colo.-based Boston Chicken, however, pointed out that their high-temperature cooking process above 155 degrees would have eliminated any harmful levels of bacterial contamination before serving their customers.

In addition to the restaurant chains, other big customers of the Hudson plant were Wal-Mart Stores of Bentonville, Ark., and its Sam's Club discount supercenters, which also pulled the suspect Hudson frozen beef patties out of its stores.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture launched an investigation after Hudson issued an initial recall of 20,000 pounds Aug. 12 and then expanded the callback to 1.2 million pounds.

After the USDA discovered that the Nebraska plant regularly used beef left over from the previous day's supply and that there was thus no clear "break" in the potential cycle of contamination, Hudson upped the figure to 25 million pounds.

The contamination came to light after several consumers in Arkansas became ill when they ate the patties they bought in their local stores. The USDA said it is not aware of any illness associated with restaurants that has been linked to the beef that originated with the Hudson supply.

Burger King spokeswoman Kim Miller said the Hudson meat had been pulled from about 1,205 restaurants in its Central, Lakes and Western regions. In some instances restaurants were without sufficient beef supply for a period of 24 hours to 48 hours while new sources were established.

On Aug. 25, Burger King and its National Franchisee Association issued a statement to consumers, noting that its burgers were available at all stores. It also told its customers: "We are writing to assure you that the hamburgers we serve at Burger King are safe."

Some industry observers said there might have been a short-term consumer reaction to the news of the tainted meat, but it would not last.

"People are not going to stop eating hamburgers," said analyst Allan Hickok of Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis. "They might trade for a chicken sandwich or two over a couple of days, but they'll go right back to hamburgers.

"Unless the consequences are really tragic, people are sort of numb to recalls," Hickok said. "we just checked with the Center's for Disease Control in Atlanta, and they say that approximately 20,000 people a year are infected by this particular strain of E. coli. So it's important to be vigilant about safety procedures.

"And you have to reassure your customers, as Burger King is now doing, that you've taken all the proper safety precautions. But there's never a guarantee that outbreaks such as this will not happen. The bottom line is that there are so many different steps along the way in the nature of food production and distribution that there are bound to be problems."

Industry officials and analysts pointed out that there have been ongoing safety education programs and that the restaurant industry constantly has been improving such procedures and their notification to the public about such problems.

"Burger king reacted immediately with remedial action, removing the burgers and assuring the public just how concerned they were about keeping their product first-rate," said Burnham Securities analyst David Leibowitz in New York. "The fear that the product out in the marketplace is tainted has been taken off the table."

Foodmaker Inc., parent of the Jack in the Box chain, which was involved in the 1993 E. coli contamination recall in which four children died and 700 fell ill, has become one of the leaders in food safety operations.

Foodmaker has come back to be one of the most profitable companies in the industry.

"What we came up with we decided to share with the industry," said David Theno, vice president of technical services at the company. "Food safety is not just the concern of one company.

"I wish I could wave a magic wand and eliminate food contamination," Theno said. "I don't want anyone to have problems with food safety because if that makes someone feel uncomfortable about eating burgers, that affects us all."