Food served to some CCSD students part of recall due to possible contamination

Sandwiches, chili dogs and burgers served to some Clark County School District students are part of a national recall issued last week because of possible listeria contamination.

No illnesses had been reported nationally in connection with the recalled ready-to-eat sandwiches as of June 19, according to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration recall notice.

More than 7,200 chili cheese dogs, barbecue rib sandwiches and cheeseburger sliders distributed to 123 Southern Nevada elementary, middle and high schools in June are part of the recall issued June 19 by Gardena, California-based Let’s Do Lunch Inc., also known as Integrated Food Service.

It is possible that some of the 7,277 distributed items were not consumed, school district spokeswoman Michelle Booth said.

“We haven’t had any situations where we think this could have affected our kids,” Booth said.

School districts and food service distributors in states including Nevada, California and New York were affected by the recall, which concerns more than 40 products produced between April 1, 2015, and May 6, 2016.

Booth said the district hasn’t been able to trace how many potentially affected products were distributed last year.

The FDA is working with Integrated Food Service, which issued the recall voluntarily, to find the cause of listeria presence in the area where the menu items are created.

“The recall is being conducted in response to routine FDA environmental sampling which found Listeria monocytogenes on multiple food contact surfaces where the products were produced on several different occasions,” according to the recall notice.

The recall does not affect retail products.

The company said the products are “unlikely to still be in commerce and due to school summer breaks, any foods remaining in frozen storage can swiftly be returned to the company.”

“As a third-generation, family-owned company, IFS takes its responsibility to provide safe, nutritious foods for all its customers very seriously, particularly the foods produced for children in schools. IFS initiated the voluntary recall in recognition of its commitment to take every precaution against foodborne illness,” the company said in the FDA notice.

CCSD has asked all schools that received the products to return them to the district’s food services section. The district is awaiting further instructions on what to do with the foods, Booth said.

The Clark County School District serves 165,000 lunches daily during the average school year and more than 40 million, meals including breakfast, each year.

Though the school district has not sent letters to parents about the recall, it has tweeted out the information and also placed it on the district’s website, Booth said.

Symptoms of listeria infection include fever, headache, stiffness, confusion and diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Daliah Wachs, a family medicine physician and assistant professor at Touro University Nevada, said parents should monitor children for symptoms if they’ve been exposed, especially younger children with compromised immune systems.

Young children, the elderly and individuals with weakened immune systems are more susceptible to develop serious and potentially fatal infections, according to the FDA.

Listeria infection doesn’t commonly cause sickness in healthy individuals, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Contact Pashtana Usufzy at pusufzy@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Find @pashtana_u on Twitter.