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Bahn mi lovers beware: Vietnamese fast food chain Lee's Sandwiches is recalling roughly 213,000 pounds of meat products that were not properly inspected by the USDA.
Beef, chicken and pork products produced and packaged by the parent company of the Garden Grove-based restaurant chain, LQNN, falsely received the USDA mark of inspection over the past year, according to the L.A. Times.
While there haven't been any reports of illnesses associated with eating the meat in question—which was sold between May 18, 2014, and May 18, 2015—the USDA has classified this as a Class One recall, which means the health risk is considered high. Products associated with the recall include pork and chicken pates and cooked turkey breast and salami. They were distributed to restaurants throughout California, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas.
According to the USDA, the company used another facility's mark of inspection on certain products, despite not being approved by federal inspectors.
LQNN explains that while the company could supply the products in question to corporate-owned Lee's Sandwiches stores, they were not permitted to supply franchise-owned stores without additional USDA approval. They also admit to mislabeling the products in a recent press release.
According to the company: "We also would like to assure the public that the implicated products were produced in an FDA regulated facility and that the leadership of LQNN is confident that the products being recalled all meet the food safety standards of the company and were manufactured using ingredients and processes that meet the requirements of the FDA."
In the meantime, you may want to look for your Vietnamese sandwich fix elsewhere until the recall is complete.
