CBC: Is one incident worthy of a beef recall?

Food safety expert and professor Rick Holly was consulted for the CBC News report about the recent Manitoba incident of the family who sat down to dinner and found something unexpected in the roast beef. It contained part of a metal needle.

There are a number of ways a piece of needle could end up in a roast, says Rick Holley, a food sciences professor at the University of Manitoba.

For example, livestock are given vaccinations twice a year, he said.

“If the animals are not properly restrained in a holding device, they can move during the course of the injection, and that’s when you can get separation of the needle,” he said.

Holley said meat processing plants do have devices to detect metal, and the piece that ended up in the roast beef was more than large enough to set off an alarm.