Federal food safety officials have ordered a nationwide recall of more than 167,000 pounds of raw pork, beef and goat products after discovering the meat was processed without any federal inspection and sold under a fabricated USDA stamp.

The recalled items — including ground pork, chorizo, chops, ribs, shanks, oxtail and menudo mix — were produced by Star Meat Delivery Inc., a Lucama, North Carolina supplier, on various dates before September 22. The products carry the fraudulent establishment number "EST. 1363" and were shipped in bulk to a distributor, A&D Foods of Duluth, Georgia, which then routed them to restaurants and retailers across the country.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service classified the recall as Class I, meaning there is a reasonable probability that eating the products could cause serious, adverse health consequences or death. According to NBC News, the violation surfaced during routine FSIS surveillance activity, not a consumer complaint or reported illness.

What officials are telling consumers

"Food produced without inspection may contain undeclared allergens, harmful bacteria, or other contaminants."

That warning, issued by the Food Safety and Inspection Service, underscores the core danger: without a federal inspector ever examining the meat, there is no verified assurance it is free of pathogens, properly labeled or safe to eat. Under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, all meat sold commercially for human consumption in the United States must pass federal inspection before it can bear a USDA mark.

Per TODAY.com, no illnesses have been confirmed as linked to the recalled products as of publication, but FSIS is urging anyone who purchased or was served the affected items to check labels for the false "EST. 1363" mark. Consumers are advised to throw the products away or return them to the place of purchase; restaurants and retailers still holding any of the recalled meat are told not to sell or serve it.

Because the meat moved through a middleman distributor before reaching restaurants and grocery counters nationwide, officials say consumers may not even know they purchased or were served the affected product, since it was often repackaged or served under different names once it left the distribution point.

The recall adds to what has been a sharply active year for meat and poultry recalls tied to inspection and labeling violations, with FSIS and food-safety trackers noting a significant rise in recalled tonnage industry-wide in 2026 compared with prior years.