Kids at a school district in Tennessee were served meat from 2009 at school cafeterias.
The meat had been in the freezer for several years before being served last week. It’s not clear if it was tainted and there are no reports of any students getting sick.
Michael Herrell is a concerned parent and Hawkins County Commissioner. On Thursday, he received a picture of the six-year-old pork roast from a cafeteria cook at Joseph Primary School, the only school in the county that didn’t serve the pork roast to students that had a date from 2009.
“They go to school and that might be the only meal they get all day long,” Herrell said. “It just upsets me that these kids are going to school to get that meal, it just didn’t go over well with me that I heard we were feeding these kids the meat that’s dated 2009.”
Herrell says a cook at Cherokee High School also told him the meat was bad, but was told by the manager to cover it with gravy to give it a better taste. The USDA guideline for quality and taste for roast is between 4-12 months. Steve Starnes, Hawkins County Director of Schools, says they plan to follow these guidelines and implement new procedures.
“We also began inventory on all of our frozen food items to make sure,” Hawkins said. “We’re not going to be incorporating not only the package date, but also the delivery date on our inventory items, make sure we know exactly when those items came in.”
Starnes says that each school will have random inspections quarterly. He says inspections will take place at two schools at a time to make sure inventory is going properly and this incident doesn’t happen again.
Starnes says he’s unsure how meat that old was still in all schools’ freezer.