As much as 1.24 million pounds of pepper-crusted salami's recall has been announced by Daniele Inc., a Rhode Island-based company, after officials managed to trace the outbreak of salmonella to its products, based mainly on the comparison of shopping receipts.

The complete recall was announced on Saturday, after health officials, after conducting a multi-state probe, which went on for months on end, of a salmonella outbreak, compared shopping receipts of consumers who had fallen ill.

The recall by the meat company has come amidst an outbreak that has managed to sicken about 184 people across 38 states since July 2009.

William Keene, a senior epidemiologist at the public health division in Oregon, has been credited with identifying and nailing Daniele's meat as the source of the currently ongoing salmonella outbreak.

Dr. Keene has said that there are, however, some questions that still remain unanswered, the biggest one being if it was the meat or the pepper that was contaminated.