CDC Narrows Search for Source of Contaminated Burger Patties

The search for the source of tainted hamburger patties sold by Jack in the Box restaurants has been narrowed to Los Angeles-based Service Packing Co. and its suppliers, according to preliminary evidence collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control.

The hamburgers, contaminated with E. coli bacteria from animal feces, produced an outbreak of food poisoning primarily in the Pacific Northwest that has led to at least three deaths and hundreds of illnesses.

After testing what remains of the meat, “there is epidemiological evidence to suggest that the bacteria entered into the production via meat supplied by Service Packing,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a memo issued Friday. The investigation, which is being spearheaded by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, is now focusing on nine suppliers to Service Packing--eight in the United States and one in Canada.

In California, those suppliers include Coelho Meat Co. of Tulare, Orvis Bros. Inc. in Modesto, Alpine Packing in Stockton and Rancho Veal in Petaluma.

At Service Packing, which has been processing meat in the Vernon area for 35 years, the news was “absolutely devastating,” said Gary Waldman, a company officer.

“We’re just one of the steps” in the process that brings a hamburger patty “from the farm to the consumer,” Waldman said.

“Our sanitation and quality control program is excellent,” he said, adding that the company is cooperating in the investigation.

Service Packing buys cattle carcasses from USDA-inspected slaughterhouses.

The carcasses are deboned and then shipped to another processor, which in this case was Arcadia-based Vons Cos.

“Because technology is not available to rapidly identify and eliminate invisible bacteria, we are dependent upon the inspected slaughter plants and their cattle suppliers to provide meat that is as safe as possible,” Waldman said.

Vons spokeswoman Julie Reynolds said the supermarket chain processed the Service Packing meat only for Jack in the Box and that Service Packing does not supply Vons supermarkets.

Foodmaker Inc., the San Diego-based parent of Jack in the Box, has sued Vons and dropped it as a supplier of beef.

Any evidence collected by the investigation is “very preliminary,” said Steve Ostroff, acting assistant director for epidemiology at the CDC. For that reason, Ostroff declined Monday to confirm whether the USDA memo was accurate, adding that “we wouldn’t want to unfairly implicate one company.”

Officials have said they may never find the original source of the contaminated meat because carcasses from many different places are ground together to make hamburger.

Investigators tested hamburger patties that were produced for Jack in the Box on Nov. 19 by Vons Cos. and found contamination in eight lots of beef, which included meat from Service Packing and three other suppliers, according to the USDA memo.

Three additional lots processed that day showed no signs of contamination, and those lots did not contain meat from Service Packing, the memo says.

The other companies that supplied beef that day were Monfort of Greeley, Colo., and North Meats and AMH, both of Australia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.