Finance

Boar’s Head recall expands to include 7 million pounds of deli meat over listeria concerns

Published

10 months ago

August 1, 2024

Business Finance News

A woman browses the meat aisle at a supermarket in Montebello, California, on May 15, 2024.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

A recall of Boar’s Head products has expanded to include a whopping 7 million additional pounds of deli and poultry items in a deadly multistate outbreak of listeria infections.

As of Tuesday, 34 people have gotten sick across 13 states in the outbreak — including 33 hospitalizations and two deaths. The fatalities were a patient in Illinois and another in New Jersey.

Last week, the deli meat company had recalled more than 207,000 pounds of deli meat, including liverwurst and ham products, because they may contain the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes.

Boar’s Head has now expanded that recall, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced in a press release Tuesday.

The expansion includes 71 products — including meat intended for slicing at delis, and some packaged meat and poultry products —produced from May 10 to July 29 under the Boar’s Head and Old Country Brand names.

The products have “sell by” dates ranging from July 29 through Oct. 17 this year (view the recalled product labels here), and were distributed to retail locations nationwide, and some to Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Panama.

Boar’s Head said in a statement on its website that it had initiated the recall after a liverwurst sample collected by the Maryland Department of Health had tested positive for listeria.

The Maryland Department of Health and Baltimore City Health Department collected an unopened liverwurst product from a retail store for further testing that determined the product sample “tested positive for the outbreak strain,” the USDA release said.

Boar’s Head said that the first voluntary recall was for its Strassburger Brand Liverwurst, and an additional nine products produced on the same production line at its Jarratt, Virginia, facility.

On Monday, the company said it learned from the USDA “that our Strassburger Brand Liverwurst has been linked to the national deli meat Listeria monocytogenes outbreak” — and as a result the recall was expanded to include all items produced at the Jarratt facility.

“We have also decided to pause ready-to-eat operations at this facility until further notice. As a company that prioritizes safety and quality, we believe it is the right thing to do,” the company said.

“No words can fully express our sympathies and the sincere and deep hurt we feel for the families that have suffered losses and others who endured illness,” the statement added.

People who bought the recalled products should throw them away or return them to the store, and also clean out their refrigerators as the bacteria can grow in cold temperatures and spread to other foods.

An investigation is underway by the FSIS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health partners.

Listeria infection is a food borne bacterial illness, most commonly caused by eating improperly processed deli meats and unpasteurized milk products, according to the Mayo Clinic. It’s the third-leading cause of death from food poisoning in the U.S.

Symptoms usually appear within two weeks of eating contaminated food, and include fever, muscle aches, tiredness, stiff neck and confusion. In severe cases, the bacteria may cause a blood infection or meningitis. The infection is dangerous for those who are older, with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women.

The CDC estimates that around 1,600 people get listeriosis each year, and about 260 die. Most cases aren’t linked to outbreaks, but there are usually a few outbreaks in a given year.

Finance

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Published

2 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Walmart taps own fintech firm for credit cards after Capital One exit

Published

2 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

A Capital One Walmart credit card sign is seen at a store in Mountain View, California, United States on Tuesday, November 19, 2019.

Yichuan Cao | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Walmart‘s majority-owned fintech startup OnePay said Monday it was launching a pair of new credit cards for customers of the world’s biggest retailer.

OnePay is partnering with Synchrony, a major behind-the-scenes player in retail cards, which will issue the cards and handle underwriting decisions starting in the fall, the companies said.

OnePay, which was created by Walmart in 2021 with venture firm Ribbit Capital, will handle the customer experience for the card program through its mobile app.

Walmart had leaned on Capital One as the exclusive provider of its credit cards since 2018, but sued the bank in 2023 so that it could exit the relationship years ahead of schedule. At the time, Capital One accused Walmart of seeking to end its partnership so that it could move transactions to OnePay.

The Walmart card program had 10 million customers and roughly $8.5 billion in loans outstanding last year, when the partnership with Capital One ended, according to Fitch Ratings.

For Walmart and its fintech firm, the arrangement shows that, in seeking to quickly scale up in financial services, OnePay is opting to partner with established players rather than going it alone.

In March, OnePay announced that it was tapping Swedish fintech firm Klarna to handle buy now, pay later loans at the retailer, even after testing its own installment loan program.

One-stop shop

In its quest to become a one-stop shop for Americans underserved by traditional banks, OnePay has methodically built out its offerings, which now include debit cards, high-yield savings accounts and a digital wallet with peer-to-peer payments.

OnePay is rolling out two options: a general-purpose credit card that can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted and a store card that will only allow Walmart purchases.

Customers whose credit profiles don’t allow them to qualify for the general-purpose card will be offered the store card, according to a person with knowledge of the program.

OnePay didn’t yet disclose the rewards expected with the cards, though the general-purpose card is expected to provide a stronger value, said this person, who declined to be identified speaking ahead of the product’s release. The Synchrony partnership was reported earlier by Bloomberg.

“Our goal with this credit card program is to deliver an experience for consumers that’s transparent, rewarding, and easy to use,” OnePay CEO Omer Ismail said in the Monday release.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Synchrony to launch a program at Walmart that checks each of those boxes and will help serve millions of people,” Ismail said.