There could be a piece of metal in your meat, if you recently bought frozen ready-to-eat sukiyaki beef or gingered pork made by Unibright Foods Inc. of Bell Gardens. 

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued an extra-serious Class 1 Recall on January 8 of approximately 48,139 pounds of two of the company’s products after an unnamed restaurant in Illinois reportedly found a stainless-steel wire in one of the beef packages and reported it. (Why a restaurant was serving frozen packaged meat to their customers is a whole different question.)

The recalled products were produced between August 12, 2014 and December 16, 2014 and include: 2.2-pound packages of Mishima Sukiyaki Beef (bearing the establishment number 1163 inside the USDA mark of inspection and package ID number 15069) and 1.7-pound packages of Mishima Gingered Pork bearing the establishment number 1163 inside the USDA mark of inspection and package ID number 15059).

Contaminated products were sold in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. SoCal Japanese markets Marukai and Mitsuwa both carry the products; those packages involved in the recall have been removed from their shelves.

According to its L.A.-area manufacturer, the Mishima Sukiyaki Beef is often used to make Sukiyaki beef with rice, udon with beef or beef salad. The Mishima Gingered Pork is usually added to pork salad or fried noodles with pork.

Happily, Unibright and the FSIS have no reports of anyone actually being injured by consuming either of the products that may be contaminated with “metal extraneous materials.”

If you find either package in your freezer, contact Jacob Fernandez at 562-806-3221 for more information. If you already ate it, try not to worry too much, as your body would likely reject a piece of metal pretty quickly — we hope.

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