E. Coli Investigation Finds Vons Supplier

Federal investigators have narrowed their search for the source of the contaminated beef that caused the deadly E. coli bacterial epidemic.

Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have determined meat from a single processing plant, Service Packing of Los Angeles, was the likely source of the contamination.

Hamburger is made by mixing different types of meat and fat from different sources. Service Packing is one of more than a dozen firms that sells meat to Vons Cos., a company that grinds the meat into hamburger and which was, until January, the main supplier to Jack in the Box.

According to the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, the contaminated hamburger was ground by Vons on Nov. 19. On that day, Vons produced 17 lots of hamburger patties.

Five of the lots were consumed. Twelve of the 17 lots were recalled. Laboratory testing of those 12 lots revealed E. coli in eight of them.

Records showed which meat went into which lot. All of the contaminated lots used Service Packing meat. None of the uncontaminated lots used Service Packing meat.

The investigators do not know which of nine potential suppliers sold the beef to Service Packing, said Jim Greene, a spokesman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

This sort of "epidemiological evidence," basically a process of elimination, is the best the investigators can hope to find so long after the original beef was processed.

USDA officials have said the specific meat likely will never be known. Processors are not required to keep samples of the meat they process and only in an extraordinary circumstance would they, USDA officials say.

Investigators last week began taking samples from the slaughterhouses that supplied Service Packing. Test results will not be completed until the end of this week at the earliest, Greene said.