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2.3 million pounds of seasoned beef has been voluntarily recalled by Taco Bell after the restaurant discovered that there were complaints of metal shavings within the ground beef.
The recall affected a massive amount of beef and included 21 states within the “eastern Midwest, northern Southeast and Northeast regions”.
So… maybe you should consider not doing Taco Bell for lunch today.
According to Taco Bell, who has been very secretive about this up until now, no one has suffered any ill effects from the contaminated ground beef at this point.
The recall officially started over the weekend for this tex-mex taco chain, with some stores simply being told that they would not receive a “refresh” of ground beef within their next order, and others being asked to direct customers away from ordered beef entirely.
According to Twitter, many users were frustrated with the lack of transparency the company offered them. Instead of immediately admitting there was a problem, they simply stopped selling it.
The beef that supposedly has metal shavings in it was made on a single line in a specific plant. This plant has two lines that handle their ground beef – only one seemed to have an issue.
The beef from that line went out to distribution centers in Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Virginia. While the company recalled over 2 million pounds from their stores, it’s unclear how much more was sitting in those distribution centers waiting to be sent out.
From the distribution centers, the beef went to stores in Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, along with several other states. If your local Taco Bell is running out of beef, there’s a good chance that it’s because it was contaminated with metal.
The company has not, and probably will not, release the total amount of stores that the recall affected.
Taco Bell has already been on Twitter to apologize for the beef shortage before news of the recall broke. In a statement released yesterday, the fast-food chain continued its apology tour.
“Nothing is more important than our customers’ safety … as soon as we received the first consumer complaint, we immediately acted to remove the product from the affected restaurants,”
If you have additional questions about the recall, you can call the Taco Bell hotline (really) at 1-800-TACOBELL Monday-Friday, 8 am to 4 pm PT.
