Nashville BBQ sold to NC school district might have harmful bacteria, feds say
Ready-to-eat barbecue made by a Nashville food manufacturer and distributed to a North Carolina school district could make anyone who eats the product badly ill, federal officials said.
Nick’s Famous Bar-B-Q is recalling about 3,100 pounds of packaged smoked pork barbecue products that could be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
A product with the possible bacteria was shipped frozen to the Robeson County Schools, company co-owner Patrick Lewis told The Charlotte Observer in an email Sunday.
“And as long as it was heated to 165 degrees, based on the product specification sheet provided to the school district, there is no danger,” Lewis said. “ Proper cooking would eradicate any possible bacteria.”
“This voluntary recall was done out of an abundance of caution,” Lewis said. “There wasn’t any specific evidence that this particular lot was contaminated but concern of possible cross contamination.“
The frozen products were made on Sept. 7-8 and packaged Sept. 8, according to a USDA news release Friday.
The bacteria may be in 20-pound boxes of “Nick’s FAMOUS Hickory Smoked Pork Bar-B-Q” with case code 23452 and a “09/2022” use-by date, officials said.
“EST. 17863” appears in the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.
“These items were distributed to institutions, including school locations in North Carolina,” according to the USDA release, which doesn’t specific which schools or a geographical location within the state.
“While the product was distributed to schools, it resulted from a commercial sale and was not part of food provided by the USDA for the National School Lunch Program,” according to the release.
USDA officials said they have received no confirmed reports of illness from eating the pork. Anyone who feels sick after eating the product should contact a health care provider.
The bacteria sickens about 1,600 people each year and kills about 260, according to the CDC.
The bacteria, which is treated with antibiotics, can cause “fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms,” according to the release. “An invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract.”
Listeriosis can kill older adults and persons with weakened immune systems, federal officials said in the release, and cause “miscarriages, still births, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn.”
In the USDA news release, officials said they’re concerned that some institutions stored the product in freezers. Throw the product away or return it to the seller, they urged.
This story was originally published October 9, 2021 at 6:46 PM.