DATE: Friday, August 22, 1997               TAG: 9708220794

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

RECALL WILL HAVE LIMITED IMPACT HERE

Fans of the meatloaf at Boston Market will have to go without for a few days.

That seems to be the only local impact of the recall of ground beef from a Hudson Foods plant in Nebraska. The outbreak of a deadly strain of E. coli food poisoning that prompted the recall has not caused any illness in Virginia, health officials said.

Workers at Boston Market outlets in Hampton Roads and northeastern North Carolina were told Thursday to pull all ground beef immediately, said Tiffany Guidry, a spokeswoman with the franchise company that operates stores in Virginia and North Carolina.

Guidry said the company is switching to another distributor and plans to have meatloaf back on the menu within a week. The restaurant doesn't sell hamburgers.

Federal authorities also said Wal-Mart Stores Inc, operators of Wal-Mart Supercenters and Sam's Clubs, might have received ground beef from the Nebraska plant.

A news release from the company said it has sold no Hudson Foods frozen ground beef patties since Aug. 13. Nationally, company representatives said they were immediately stopping sales of beef from Hudson Foods or had already done so.

Customers may return any Hudson frozen ground beef to a Wal-Mart Supercenter or Sam's Club for a full refund, even if they don't have receipts.

Federal authorities also said some Burger King restaurants nationwide had received the Hudson Foods beef. But a local Burger King official said the Hampton Roads franchises do not get their beef from Hudson Foods, and so would not be affected by the recall.

Local Burger Kings get their beef from a distributor in Petersburg, said Clark Elverum, a managing director for the franchise company.

Burger King and Boston Market representatives pointed out that the restaurants cook ground beef to a temperature high enough to kill the heat-sensitive E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. Guidry said Boston Market cooks meatloaf to a core temperature of 170 degrees Fahrenheit, above the recommended minimum.

Burger King says it cooks at or above the recommended 155 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds; Elverum said the procedure is automated to prevent error, and that temperature samples are taken four times daily.

No other companies doing business locally were named by the U.S. Agriculture Department as receiving products from the Nebraska plant.

The outbreak, which has sickened people in Colorado, has apparently not been responsible for any illness in Virginia, said Dr. Denise Benkel with the state health department. DNA fingerprinting on all reported cases of E. coli O157:H7 in recent months showed no connection between cases here and the subtype connected with the Colorado outbreak.

MEMO: Staff writer Kennan Newbold contributed to this story. KEYWORDS: RECALL CONTAMINATED FOOD BEEF

E COLI HAMBURGER

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