Meatingplace magazine delved into the record-breaking recall
of beef by XL Foods Inc. and highlights differences between government
approaches in the United States and Canada.
It says XL was hard hit because of “rolling recalls” that
added more products and retail outlets on a daily basis as the recalling began
in late September and that "amount(ed) to repeated punches in the public boxing ring."
The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety
Inspection Service tends to wait and then make one recall, Meatingplace found.
It does not discuss the implications for food safety from
waiting.
It also found that Canadian meat that goes to U.S. markets
gets more random-sample testing than meat marketed inside Canada.
But the additional testing does not improve food safety,
according to Brent Cator, president and chief executive officer of Cardinal
Meats of Brampton. If that were the case, then meat destined for the Canadian market ought to be subjected to an equal amount of random sampling and testing.
“The answer is prevention at farm and harvested
interventions that lead to carcass pasteurization,” Cator said.
He noted that further processors, such as his company, want
carcass pasteurization.
That standard remains elusive. Irradiation is often
mentioned as a way to achieve it, but it doesn’t work as well as many believe,
Meatingplace says.
Ironically, Cardinal Meats was involved in its own beef
recall less than a month after XL Foods finally got back into production. The
source of the pathogenic bacteria
has not yet been identified and/or revealed by the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency.
Another big difference between the U.S. and Canada is the extra power the CFIA holds to force and supervise a recall, says
Meatingplace.
It also raised questions about destroying so much of the
recalled beef and the CFIA requirement that beef that was cooked undergo
another round of sampling and testing for E. coli 0157:H7.
Meatingplace indicates that was overkill because
high-temperature, long-term cooking is well known to kill harmful bacteria.
It reports that XL ended up dumping one million pounds of
beef into a landfill, and rendering or cooking 12 million pounds. It recalled
2.5 million pounds from the United States.
Canadian news reports indicate the first time E. coli was
identified in XL beef products was at the border where U.S. inspectors took a
sample. Meatingplace says that on the same day – Sept. 4 – the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency found E. coli 0157:H7 on meat in the packing plant.
Canadian news reports indicated the CFIA confirmation of E. coli contamination came days, if not more than a week, later.
While XL turned over operations to JBS to get back into
production, Meatingplace notes that JBS had its own food-safety challenges. In
2010 it had a high-volume recall of beef from its plant at Greeley, Colorado. JBS has an option to buy XL for $100 million, an option Meatingplace expects JBS to exercise.
“The reality is that
E. coli can and will
get through,
no matter who is in charge."
“The reality is that E. coli can and will get through, no
matter who is in charge,” says the magazine.
“As such, industry is left to make the best of a risky
business while trying to make products as safe as possible with the available
technologies.”
In another article in the magazine, it says some retailers
are spraying antibacterial agents in the tray packs for retail marketing before
they put the meat cuts into the packs for sealing.
It’s not clear how that practice squares with consumer
concerns about the use of antibiotics on farms.
