Cargill Inc. said Wednesday that it is immediately recalling about 36 million pounds of ground turkey that may be linked to an outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella that's killed one person and sickened dozens nationwide.

The recall primarily affects several varieties of Cargill's Honeysuckle White ground turkey that the company produced in Springdale, Ark., between Feb. 20 and this week.

The Minnetonka-based agribusiness giant, one of the country's biggest ground-turkey producers, has suspended ground-turkey production at its Springdale plant.

"Cargill is a very large company and they have very high standards," said Carol Tucker Foreman, a food policy expert for the Consumer Federation of America. "They screwed up this time."

The recall is a Class One -- the most serious of three types of recalls defined by the federal government -- involving dangerous or defective products that could cause death or serious health problems. It is one of the larger Class One U.S. meat recalls in recent years, and one of several meat recalls that have bedeviled Cargill, according to Bill Marler, an attorney specializing in food safety cases.

The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Monday that 77 people have been infected with the same antibiotic-resistant strain of Salmonella Heidelberg since March. The CDC has suspected ground turkey as the cause.

A Minnesota woman who was sickened in March was among the 22 people hospitalized during the salmonella outbreak. Michigan and Ohio had the most infections, with 10 each, but cases were widely scattered. Wisconsin had three cases.

Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever. It can be life-threatening to people with weakened immune systems.

Cargill said in a statement that the recall reflects its commitment to public health and consumer safety.

Stores act quickly

Eden Prairie-based Supervalu, one of the nation's largest supermarket operators, said it was immediately pulling the recalled products from its Cub Foods stores and at three other chains in other states. Cub is the Twin Cities' largest grocery chain.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said much of the recalled ground turkey probably isn't in stores anymore because it was processed months ago.

"These numbers obviously appear to be very large, but in reality it is a much, much lower amount that is still out there," he said.

Other turkey products made at the same Springdale plant are not part of the recall. Products from Cargill's three other U.S. turkey processing plants -- in Missouri, Texas and Virginia -- are not affected.

Cargill said it initiated the recall as a result of an internal investigation and information from the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Steve Willardsen, head of Cargill's turkey processing business, said in a statement that the investigation is continuing and that there is no conclusive answer on the source of the salmonella contamination.

Recent recalls

Three other recent recalls involving products from Cargill and Austin-based Hormel involved antibiotic-resistant salmonella strains, according to the Centers for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit advocacy group.

In 2009, a Cargill plant in Fresno, Calif., recalled nearly 826,000 pounds of ground beef after 40 people got sick from the same salmonella strain. That same year, the same strain sickened two more people, prompting a smaller beef recall from the same plant. In April, Jennie-O Turkey Store, a company owned by Hormel, recalled nearly 55,000 pounds of frozen raw turkey burger products linked to another antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella.

Cargill's meat recalls in recent years include 845,000 pounds of frozen ground beef patties made at a Wisconsin plant. That recall, in late 2007, was connected to an E.coli O157:H7 outbreak in several states, including Minnesota, that sickened 11 people. One of them was a Cold Spring woman named Stephanie Smith who developed complications that left her without the use of her legs, bowel and bladder. She sued Cargill for $100 million plus medical costs and settled last year for an undisclosed amount.

A bacterium that has about 2,400 different strains, salmonella is common in poultry. Cooking turkey thoroughly is a reliable way to kill salmonella.

In May, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the USDA to declare four salmonella strains, including the one identified in the Cargill outbreak, as "adulterants," like E. coli, under federal law and illegal to sell as a raw product. The petition is pending.

"USDA has a responsibility to move proactively to prevent outbreaks, rather than just responding to them once they occur," said Sarah Klein, a staff attorney for the center, in a statement about the latest outbreak.

Cargill says it tests for salmonella, but not for specific strains.