One Texas consumer advocacy group has a beef with the food industry — namely, that it's bringing far too much contaminated meat to market.
Austin-based TexPIRG Education Fund crunched federal numbers for a new report and discovered that while recalls for produce and processed food declined by a third since 2016, meat and poultry recalls are up slightly since then — and jumped a steep 65% since 2013.
Indeed, the most hazardous meat and poultry recalls — Class I under federal guidelines — have nearly doubled, up 85% since 2013, according to the data.
Those figures matter because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate one in six people in the U.S. get foodborne illnesses annually, resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.
“Consumers shouldn't have to worry that their next bite might sicken or kill them, especially when food safety agencies leave so many solutions in the pantry,” said TexPIRG Director Bay Scoggin. “Our analysis suggests that when commonsense protections are implemented, our food gets safer.”
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