Federal law-enforcement agencies have confirmed that they are investigating charges that a supplier of meat products to some of the nation’s largest school districts has inserted vegetable filler and water into the meat, diverting some of the federally supplied meat for use in other products.
The company, L.B. Darling Inc., of Southborough, Mass., supplies precooked meat products, such as meat loaf and hamburger, to the New York City, Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago school systems for use in the federal school-lunch program.
According to Jerome B. Rounds, the current chairman of the company, the previous owners had taken beef supplied by the federal government and sold it to school districts in adulterated form. The company used the excess beef in other products, he said, making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profits.
Mr. Rounds said he learned of the practice when he and a group of investors bought the company last October and immediately notified school boards and federal authorities.
John J. Cloherty, a spokesman for the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed last month that the agency has been investigating the activities of the company since late last year. He said that the investigation has focused on the “old” company, before it was, purchased by the group headed by Mr. Rounds.
Thomas J. Curley, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston who is handling the case, also said the federal probe focuses on activities of the company under previous owners. “The current owners of L.B. Darling have fully cooperated in every respect since the inception of the investigation, which began after the company was sold,” Mr, Curley said.
School-board officials stressed that the alleged practices did not endanger the health of children in any way. In fact, they said, the school officials could not detect any change in the nutritional value of the meat.
“We test the product cooked,” said Robert Terte, a spokesman for the New York City Board of Education. “That determines the protein content, not the source of the protein.” He added that the protein could have come from the soy filler.
Kathryn Brophy, a school-board official in Boston, noted that federal regulations allow a certain amount of filler. Local tests could not determine whether a product contained an excessive amount of filler, she added.
As part of the school-lunch program, the federal government buys beef and other food products, and donates them free of charge to regional offices within states. The food is then distributed to local school districts.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said that the government buys raw beef at 94 cents a pound.
Many schools do not have cooking facilities on the premises.
Processed Meat
In these schools, food is sent to a processing company and returned in pre-cooked form. It can then be reheated and served. Ms. Brophy estimated that half of the 31,000 students who receive school lunches in Boston are in such schools.
L.B Darling was under contract with school districts to process the meat products. Mr. Terte, of the New York City board, said the board paid $298,000 for the processing of 679,000 pounds of beef in 1985 and $530,000 for 1.2 million pounds in 1984. Since then, the board has bought meat products from a distributor, using a list of approved products. L.B. Darling products are on the list, Mr. Terte said.
The current F.B.I. investigation follows 1984 federal legal proceedings against the manager of a meat-processing plant who was accused of selling contaminated meat to the school-lunch program. The manager pleaded guilty to the charges, and his company was disqualified from bidding on federal contracts. Since then, the U.S.D.A. has stepped up its inspection practices, according to Debra Shore, an investigator for the Better Government Association, the Chicago-based watchdog group that first reported the meat-contamination problem.
