SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 1, 2007 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- General Mills (NYSE:GIS) Inc. said Thursday its Totino's and Jeno's brands are voluntarily recalling frozen pizzas with pepperoni toppings because of possible contamination of the pepperoni with E. coli O157:H7.

The potential problem was uncovered by state and federal authorities investigating 21 occurrences of E. coli-related illnesses in 10 states, General Mills said. About half of those who became ill were hospitalized. The earliest reported case occurred on July 20 and the latest case reported occurred on Oct. 10.

Nine of the 21 people reported having eaten Totino's or Jeno's pizza with pepperoni topping at some point before getting sick, the company said.

The recall affects roughly 414,000 cases of pizza products currently in stores and all similar pizza products in consumers' freezers, General Mills said.

The frozen pizza products were produced in the company's Wellston, Ohio, plant and distributed nationwide.

Since July 1 of this year, General Mills said Totino's and Jeno's have distributed more than 120 million pizzas nationwide.

General Mills shares fell 1.4% to $56.93.

Gabriel Madway
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