Frozen meals served to students across the United States as part of federally-funded school breakfast and lunch programs may be contaminated with listeria and have been recalled, officials announced on Saturday.
The recall applied to approximately 91,585 pounds of prepackaged breakfast burritos and wraps, manufactured by the California company M.C.I. Foods between Sept. 17 and Oct. 14, said the Food Safety and Inspection Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that focuses on public health regulations.
Its announcement cited seven different types of frozen breakfast products that could be tainted. They are distributed to low-income students around the country as part of the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs, which the Department of Agriculture administers. The breakfast program served more than 14 million children in 2016, and close to 30 million children participated in the lunch program in 2019, according to the department.
There are no confirmed reports of illnesses tied to the recalled products, which include burritos and wraps sold by the brands El Mas Fino, Los Cabos and Midamar and contain egg, cheese and various meats like beef, ham, sausage and turkey, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service. The agency said it recalled those products after the manufacturer discovered listeria while conducting routine testing on egg ingredients from its external suppliers.
“FSIS is concerned that some product may be in institutional refrigerators of freezers,” said the agency. “Institutions are urged not to serve these products. These products should be thrown away.”
Listeria is an infection caused by bacteria of the same name that spreads through food. Fever, headache, stiff neck, muscle aches, confusion, loss of balance and a range of gastrointestinal problems are some of the symptoms brought on by the illness, according to the Mayo Clinic. The clinic warns that pregnant women, newborns, older adults and people with weakened immune systems are at the highest risk of developing a harmful infection.
People can be infected with listeria without becoming seriously ill, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency has estimated that listeria is the third leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the U.S., with 1,250 people contracting the infection and 172 dying from the infection each year.
Public health officials note that flu-like symptoms caused by listeria can signal an “invasive” infection, meaning one that has spread from the gastrointestinal tract, where symptoms may start, to other parts of the body. These invasive infections typically develop within two months of eating contaminated food, according to the CDC.
Multiple listeria outbreaks have been reported just this month. One impacted meal kits from the food subscription service HelloFresh and another forced the recall of nearly 245,000 pounds of precooked pasta, from the California company Nate’s Fine Foods, which turned deadly and potentially contaminated dozens of different products sold in grocery stores nationwide
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