The Minnesota Department of Health issued a press release in December 2000, regarding 17 residents who had been sicked with E. coli O157:H7.

MDH’s final report on the outbreak linked the infections to contaminated ground beef that was sold at SuperValu/Cub Foods, who issued a recall on the products.

The contaminated ground beef was manufactured at American Food Group, who also issued a recall. The 1.1 million pounds of recalled beef was processed in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Department of Public Health also linked three cases of E.coli infection in their state to the same beef.

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service also noted that AFG had been told to recall 1,000 pounds of beef two years earlier, when meat contaminated with E. coli was found at a Cub Foods store in Chicago, Illinois. AFG had also issued a recall for over a half a million pounds of ground beef in 2001.