Star Meat Delivery Recall: 167,000 Pounds of Meat Never Actually Inspected

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If you’ve bought pork, beef, or goat meat labeled “A&D Foods” recently, it’s worth two minutes to check where it came from.

Star Meat Delivery Inc., based in Lucama, North Carolina, is recalling roughly 167,639 pounds of raw meat products. The problem isn’t contamination that’s been confirmed. It’s that this meat was never inspected in the first place, and it was labeled to make it look like it had been.

Watch: The 60-Second Recall Breakdown

Star Meat Delivery’s raw pork, beef, and goat products were sold under a fake USDA inspection mark before this nationwide Class I recall.

What Was Recalled

The recall covers 23 different raw meat items sold under the “A&D Foods” label, including:

• Ground pork, pork chops, pork chorizo, pork feet, ribs, hocks, and Boston butt
• Goat cuts and menudo mix
• Beef ribeye, chuck, oxtail, short ribs, shanks, and feet

All of it carried a federal inspection mark reading “EST. 1363.” According to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), that establishment number is fake. It doesn’t belong to any USDA-inspected facility.

Why This Recall Matters

Every pound of meat sold in the U.S. is supposed to pass through federal inspection before it reaches a restaurant or a store. That inspection is what catches diseased animals, unsafe handling, and contamination before the meat ever gets to you.

This meat skipped that step entirely. FSIS discovered the problem through routine surveillance activity, not because anyone got sick.

That’s an important distinction. The agency has classified this as a Class I recall, its most serious category, reserved for situations with a reasonable chance of serious health consequences. But that classification is about the risk of the unknown, not confirmed contamination. As of the recall announcement, no illnesses have been reported.

Because the meat bypassed inspection, though, nobody actually verified it was handled safely, sourced from healthy animals, or free of contamination. That’s the real concern here: not a specific pathogen, but a total blind spot.

Where the Recalled Meat Was Sold

Star Meat Delivery shipped the products in bulk to A&D Foods, a distributor based in Georgia, which sent them out nationwide to restaurants and retailers. This wasn’t sold directly to shoppers under a grocery store’s own label — it moved through the food-service supply chain, which makes it harder for an individual consumer to know if they’ve encountered it.

If you run a restaurant, catering business, or retail counter and have purchased “A&D Foods” pork, beef, or goat products, USDA says to stop serving or selling it immediately.

If you have A&D Foods pork, beef, or goat products in your freezer, check the packaging before you cook it.

What To Do If You Have This Meat

• Don’t cook it or serve it. Throw the product away or return it to where you bought it.
• Check the label for “A&D Foods” and an “EST. 1363” mark.
• If you ordered from a restaurant recently and you’re unsure about their meat sourcing, it’s reasonable to ask.
• Sanitize surfaces that touched the product, the same way you would for any raw meat.

If you have questions, Star Meat Delivery can be reached at 252-239-0610, and the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline is available at 888-674-6854 (Monday–Friday, 10am–6pm ET).

You can read the official USDA FSIS recall notice here for the full list of affected products and establishment details.

This isn’t the first time uninspected meat carrying a fake USDA mark has made it into the food supply — it’s worth knowing why food inspection marks exist in the first place and what they actually protect you from. If you want another recent example of how seriously regulators treat unverified meat, our Pork Guanciale Listeria recall breakdown covers a similar restaurant-supply-chain recall from earlier this year.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if I have the recalled meat?
Check for the “A&D Foods” label and an inspection stamp reading “EST. 1363.” If you bought meat from a restaurant or don’t know its source, this recall is a reason to ask.

Is this an FDA recall or a USDA recall?
This is a USDA recall, handled by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Meat and poultry fall under USDA oversight rather than the FDA, which handles most other food products.

Has anyone gotten sick?
No illnesses have been reported as of the recall announcement. The recall is about the meat never being inspected, not a confirmed contamination.

Why is this a Class I recall if no one’s gotten sick?
Class I is USDA’s highest-risk category, used when there’s a reasonable probability that eating the product could cause serious health problems. Because this meat was never inspected, its safety was never actually verified, which is enough to trigger that classification on its own.

What should restaurants and retailers do?
Stop serving or selling any “A&D Foods” pork, beef, or goat product immediately and dispose of remaining stock.

Where can I get more information?
The official USDA FSIS recall notice has the complete product list. You can also call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-674-6854.