Fruitland American denied on Thursday that the meat had been improperly handled. The company said the government’s finding was based on a clerical error, in which the age of the cattle had been documented as 30 months or more, when rules on mad cow must be followed, because older cows are believed to be at greater risk. But birth records showed that the cows were in fact no more than 28 months old, a spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, Alexandra Tarrant, said the agency was looking into the chance that a clerical error had occurred.

The meat was shipped to 34 Whole Foods stores in northern Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Michael Sinatra, a spokesman for the company, said none of the meat was currently in the stores.

The government would not name the restaurant that received the meat, because it has probably been consumed.

Mad cow disease, scientifically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is believed to lead to a fatal brain disorder in humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It is believed to be transmitted to humans who eat the brain, spinal cord or digestive tract of infected cattle, and it can take months to manifest itself. The Agriculture Department said slaughterhouse logs showed that the cattle’s dorsal root ganglia, which are in the spine, may not have been entirely removed.