by KYW's Hadas Kuznits
The Philadelphia School District is now a part of the nation's largest-ever beef recall.
For a list of other affected school districts in the area, click here.
Meat included in the recall was discovered Tuesday in city schools.
Fernando Gallard with the Philadelphia School District says it has been set aside for disposal:
"At this point, we are not sure what amount has been distributed to the schools and how much these students actually consumed. We do know that out of the six processors we do purchase the beef from, two of them had the beef that was part of the recall."
Meanwhile, schools are being cleaned, and students will go meat-free for a while:
"The Philadelphia School District has removed all beef products -- regardless of its source -- from their menus, until further notice."
Gallard says so far, no food sicknesses as a result of the recall have been reported:
"We haven't identified specific schools but there are a number of schools that we believe have the beef actually on-site. So what we have asked is for those schools to actually separate that. Right now I do not have a number of schools that are a part of this recall but we're going to look further into that."
District officials said Monday that they weren't affected by the recall; further checking proved otherwise.
The US Department of Agriculture has ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., which provided meat to school lunch programs.
The California slaughterhouse is the subject of an animal-abuse investigation.
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are among nearly 200 Pennsylvania school districts and vocational and religious schools that are affected by the nation's largest beef recall.
The USDA has said the health threat appears minimal.
The Associated Press contributed material to this report.
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