Cyndi Loza

All but one Nevada school district has used meat from the California company that had to recall 143 million pounds of beef, officials said Wednesday.

“Every district in Nevada was affected one way or another,” Wanda Shepherd, programs specialist for the Nevada food distribution program, said.

Shepherd said products from the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. were served in each school district except Esmeralda County, the only one not in the federal lunch program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered the recall Sunday of frozen beef from the Chino, Calif., company after a video emerged showing the animals being treated cruelly, USDA spokesman Keith Williams said.

Officials estimated about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school lunch programs but said most of the meat probably already had been eaten.

No illnesses have been reported from the beef.

About 150 school districts in the nation also stopped using ground beef from Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which is associated with Westland.

Joan Munckton, co-director for nutrition services in the Washoe County School District, said the district stopped serving the recalled meat when notified Jan. 31 to stop serving the beef by the USDA, and was told to place the meat in a landfill or incinerate it.

“Right now, the concern is making sure that we properly destroy all the products,” Munckton said.

Lyon County and Carson City school districts also received notice at the end of January to stop serving the beef.

“We’re just changing things around to make sure all of the beef that they are worried about does not to get fed to the students,” said Millie Andrews, nutrition supervisor for the Lyon County School District.

About 200 cases of beef intended for Carson City schoolchildren will be disposed of Friday, said Mike Mitchell, Carson City School District operations director.

“On Jan. 31, we were directed to wrap up (the meat) and put it aside as ‘not for use,’” he said. “We just got the direction from the state to dispose of it, and that’s what we’ll do. It was never even opened.”

Because school lunches are purchased with state, county and local money, disposing of them is a lengthy process requiring multiple inspections, Mitchell said. A variety of officials will watch Friday when the suspect beef is disposed of at the Carson City Sanitary Landfill, he said.

Munckton said the students do not seem to mind their beef-less lunches.

“The kids have been great about it. They haven’t complained at all,” Munckton said.

The company also supplied meat to some major fast-food chains. No restaurants in the Reno area used the beef.