Why USDA announced recall of more than 167K pounds of meat

In September 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a recall of more than 160,000 pounds of beef, pork and goat meat because it was produced without a proper federal inspection.

For example, independent journalist Aaron Parnas shared the claim on Facebook, writing that the USDA issued a “large scale meat recall.”

Claims about the recall also spread on X (archived), Instagram (archived) and Threads (archived). Snopes readers contacted us to ask about the claim.

The claim reflected an authentic recall. The USDA published a recall for “approximately 167,639 pounds of raw pork, beef, and goat products” on Sept. 22, 2026.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which carries out legally required inspections of meat products sold commercially in the U.S., said Star Meat Delivery Inc. in Lucama, North Carolina, recalled the meat because the company had produced it “without the benefit of federal inspection.” The products in question bore “a false USDA mark of inspection,” according to the FSIS. 

Since the FSIS had not inspected the products, they should be “considered misbranded and unsafe to eat,” the agency wrote.

The FSIS identified 23 products distributed under the A&D Foods label that Star Meat Delivery Inc. had recalled. A full list of labels for recalled products is available here. According to the agency:

The products subject to recall bear false marks of inspection with establishment number “EST. 1363,” which does not have a federal grant of inspection. These items were shipped to A&D Foods, a distributor in Georgia, for further distribution to retail and restaurant locations nationwide. 

In a statement (archived) shared via Facebook on Sept. 24, Star Meat Delivery said the recalled products were processed and packaged at one of its facilities while undergoing the USDA approval process to provide cutting and packaging services for out-of-state customers. The company also rejected claims that it used a “fake USDA stamp,” explaining the establishment number in question was legitimately reserved for its processing center during the application process.

The statement read, in part:

The meat involved in this recall was sourced from a USDA-inspected supplier. Star Meat Delivery has never operated by sourcing meat from unapproved or unknown sources. Our business has been built on working with established suppliers and serving longstanding customers throughout our industry.

As our customers’ needs have evolved, we began working through the USDA approval process to provide additional cutting and packaging services to meet specific customer requests out of state. 

The recent recall, which was initiated by us, involves products that were processed and packaged for a meat distributor in GA, while that approval process was still underway. No other products sold by Star Meat Delivery were mislabeled, and no other products sold by Star Meat Delivery are part of the recall that has been issued.

We would also like to clarify that a fake USDA stamp was NOT used on these products. The establishment number “EST. 1363 was legitimately reserved for our processing center as part of the USDA application process. We are cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities to finalize the application and are following the recall procedures that have been put into place.

There had been no confirmed reports of illness or injury due to consumption of the recalled products at the time of this writing.

People buying meat products in the U.S. who want to check their USDA marks of inspection can look up FSIS-inspected establishments in the service’s’ database.

For further reading, Snopes has previously covered other recalls of food or other products in the U.S.