One of the most powerful and civic-minded families in western New York has a link to the company that issued one of the largest beef recalls in U.S. history.

Robert Gioia, a Buffalo businessman and philanthropist, is a former chairman of Topps Meat Company, which said Friday that it was going out of business because of a recall of 21.7 million pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated with a potentially fatal strain of E. coli bacteria.

Thirty people in eight states have been sickened, legal action looms, and some wonder why the U.S. Agriculture Department didn’t warn consumers sooner.