The USDA has announced the 5th largest recall of tainted beef in history, totaling 21.7 million pounds. The target this time? Pre-made hamburger patties packaged by Topps Meat Company. The patties are believed tainted with E. coli bacteria.

Inspectors found that Topps didn’t handle the meat properly: they mixed day-old meat held onto at the end of a product run with fresh meat on the following day, which violates safety standards.

Unfortunately, the recall is likely to have come too late. Consumption patterns cited by the company leads Topps to believe the majority of the beef products have already been consumed. Since this is a frozen product, the USDA urges consumers to look through their freezers for any of the tainted products and throw them out.

Frankly, outside of the fast-food industry, I’ve never understood why anyone would purchase a pre-fab hamburger patty in the first place. Tossing a machine-issued, disc shaped pile of meat on fire doesn’t make you any more of a BBQ King (or Queen) than the guy at McDonald’s, even if you’re standing in a fancy outdoor kitchen instead of wearing a little paper hat.

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