Prisoners and ex-cons are preparing meat in United States prisons and packing plants.
In fact, ex-cons are among the favourites of some packing plants which don't want to pay workers any more than they have to for jobs that are hard work in cold and damp, or hot and humid conditions, on slippery floors handling sharp knives and dangerous equipment.
Some meat packers also seek immigrants, refugees and people here illegally and hiding from law-enforcement officials. Not only do they have to pay them much, but also these workers are easy to intimidate.
This is the North American playing field on which Canadian meat packers compete.
Meatingplace magazine says in its current issue that "ex-offenders are an obvious pool of candidates for working on the line in a meat production facility.
"They need work and often are eager to do so. Furthermore, many are already trained as some prisons have in-house meat-processing facilities manned by inmates.
"In an industry for which the annual turnover rates are typically 30 to 50 per cent (and often much higher) meat packers also are constantly looking for candidates."
This is not exactly the kind of information that public relations and advertising-industry creative types feature when they prepare messages for the meat-eating public.
Nor is this information shared when there are recalls of products contaminated with bacteria that can make people sick, sometimes so sick they die.
The meat-packing industry was determined 20 and 30 years ago to break the clout of unions, and to drive down wages. Canadian packers followed suit.
I recall when a job at J.M. Schneider Inc. in Kitchener was coveted because the wages were relatively high and there was excellent job security. It's one of the main reasons why the company could proudly advertise its commitment to quality.
Today the workers at packing plants in Southwestern Ontario are likely to be recent immigrants, none of them proficient in English, none of them with any training or experience in food handling and all of them willing only to work as long as it takes to find a better job.
And what kind of training do the employers offer in the United States where there will be plenty of newcomers every day and every week? Who knows?
The Food Inspection Service in the United States doesn't supervise or check the quality of employee training. Nor does the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. They just watch what's happening on the line - or at least we hope they're watching.
As for the public, what we don't know won't hurt us. Will it?
