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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
More than 90 different products have been stripped from Yellowknife grocery shelves after fears of an E. coli outbreak lead to a recall on beef products from XL Foods Inc. of Alberta.

The Yellowknife Direct Charge Co-op was forced to find a new beef supplier after a mass recall of XL Food's beef products hit NWT stores last month. - Lyndsay Herman/NNSL photo

Since the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found a strand of E. coli in raw beef trimmings from an XL Foods Inc. facility in early September, 1,500 products across North America have been voluntarily recalled by XL Foods.

"It is a large one," said Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

"There is no doubt about that. We don't keep statistics on what's the largest ever in Canadian history, but we do know it's a very large one with over 1,500 products recalled so far."

Ben Walker, general manager of the Yellowknife Direct Charge Co-op, said he has never, in his 40 years, seen a recall this large. He said his store has taken anything and everything from XL Foods from their shelves, even those which fall outside of the recall packing dates, until the company is re-awarded its licence to operate by the food inspection agency.

"Anything from XL Foods, we removed it all from the cases," Walker said. "We scrubbed down the cases, sanitized them, scrubbed down the meat room, isolated (the products), just not to take any chances."

O'Connor said it is likely the list of recalled products will continue to expand as the agency continues a trace out, which means following the products produced on days of concern from the plant to distribution areas to retail locations.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency website states four people, all in Alberta, have reported illness due to E. coli-contaminated XL Food beef products.

"We advise people, if they think they may have product in their fridge or freezer that's affected, if they're not sure if it's related, to go back to the retailer and ask them," O'Connor said. "The retailer will have that information. If they are unsure of where they bought it and have it at home, our advice is: 'When in doubt, throw it out.'"

O'Connor said it is possible to kill E. coli through proper cooking and the agency always recommends using a meat thermometer when cooking. However, the agency and XL Foods Inc. primarily recommends returning product that may be contaminated to be safe. Walker said the co-op is finding new suppliers for as many of the products as possible, though with a large supplier like XL Foods, which supplies beef in both Canada and the United States, out of commission means maintaining the same selection of product can be difficult.

"Now everybody is trying to go through a different supplier and pick up supplies," he said. "Now the volume of beef is going to be down for a while so that might acerbate it a bit. Our pork and chicken, we doubled our sales in that on the weekend when we didn't have any beef. We've tripled our orders on poultry and pork for this week."

Extra Foods did not respond to Yellowknifer's request for an interview.

A full list of recalled products can be found on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website.

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