Service Packing Co

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.

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.

About a third of the ground beef feared to have been contaminated with a carcinogenic pesticide that poisoned dairy herds in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma has been cleared and will be released to schools for lunch programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors reported. They said tests on 105 lots of ground beef produced by five packers, including Service Packing Co.

Pizza, chicken and other substitutes will be replacing hamburgers on some school lunch menus in California and other states because of fears that ground beef supplied under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Donated Food Program may be contaminated with a cancer-causing pesticide. Officials stressed that there have been no reports of illness caused by meat tainted with heptachlor, a pesticide used widely on feed grains until it was banned as a carcinogen in 1978.

Recalling the muckraking food-industry exposes of almost a century ago, President Clinton on Saturday announced a new system for guarding against deadly bacteria in meat and poultry by relying more on scientific testing and less on the touch, sight and smell of federal inspectors. The responsibility for designing and implementing the new system--and its eventual cost of perhaps $100 million a year--will fall mainly on private industry.