You cannot slaughter animals without workers to do the work, and you cannot sell meat without inspectors.
We need to protect both workers and inspectors or we will see more plants shutter and our grocery stores empty.
Forcing workers and inspectors to work unprotected is not the answer.
According
Continue Reading Publisher’s Platform: We are having a problem with the U.S. meat supply
Dear Editor,
As a former CFIA ( Canadian Food Inspection Agency) inspector, I have been following this story regarding the change in inspections on the hog plants with great interest. Change is hard but it doesn’t mean the job is eliminated. For the hog program to have the plant
Continue Reading Letter to the Editor: Swine inspections from the Canadian perspective
Dear Editor,
I am submitting this letter in response to Dan Flynn’s earlier piece regarding pork inspection line speeds.
The federal government’s decision to put pork producers in charge of their own food safety inspections — while letting them set the line speeds that inspection workers must follow —
Continue Reading Letter to the Editor: USDA move to outsource inspections is recipe for disaster
The Hill, a Washington-based news publication, recently published a story about the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS), an outgrowth of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) HACCP-Based Inspection Model Project (HIMP) with these warnings: “A new rule . . . would reduce
Continue Reading What’s behind the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System?
Dr. Yolanda Thomspon was the USDA inspector on duty for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) at the Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. plant in Storm Lake, IA, on March 26, 2018.
Her actions that day are alleged to have cost Tyson Fresh Meats and Tyson Foods Inc. $1.85 million.
Continue Reading Tyson lost $2.5 million because, they say, FSIS failed to properly inspect hogs
An Illinois grocery store is recalling 54 pounds of ground beef because of test results following routine product sampling by inspectors on March 14, according to a recall notice posted March 19 by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
Employees at La Rosita Fresh Market Inc. in Mt.
Continue Reading Inspection, routine E. coli tests spark recall of beef ground in grocery store
At the time FSIS required all federal plants to implement HACCP, our family-owned slaughter/processing plant had been in existence for 49 years, 24 years of which I had been the manager. Thus, I realized that if we were to continue to exist, that our entire staff would need to
Continue Reading Living a lie behind a miniskirt of science — free speech can be medicinal
Everyone returning to work early Wednesday at Colorado’s big JBS beef plant had to contend with some pretty cold weather, but they did not have any concerns about whether USDA inspectors would be on hand. Without those inspectors, the largest employer in Greeley, CO, with a payroll of about 5,000,
Continue Reading It was business as usual on first business day of partial government shutdown
On Jan. 19, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a proposed rule that would lift current caps on line speeds in pork processing plants and reduce federal oversight in these facilities.
The proposed rule is strongly backed by the meatpacking industry, but the fact is that raising line speeds in
Continue Reading Letter to the Editor: USDA should rethink pork line speed plan
Sometimes when a door swings open, opportunity for change has the chance to enter.
That’s what some members of the National Association of Federal Veterinarians are hoping will happen now that two top food safety positions at the U.S, Department of Agriculture are in line for new leadership.
On July
Continue Reading Former USDA officials say feds critically short of veterinarians
