Monday, September 10, 2012

Burnbrae has some problems


Joe Hudson and his Burnbrae and Maple Lynn operations have run into some flak from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, including cracks and dirts in what’s claimed to be Grade A eggs.

The information slips through the cracks of heavy censorship of 125 pages of documents the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has released after I filed a request about two years ago.

Among the most damaging information is a report that indicates a shipment that was cleared for market from Burnbrae Farms was later found deficient by Canadian Food Inspection Agency people at Best Choice Eggs at Blackstock.

That is similar to shipments from L.H. Gray and Sons Ltd. to Best Choice.

The documentation indicates the CFIA inspector, Paul Smith, at Best Choice ordered a shipment of boxes of large brown loose eggs be sent back to Burnbrae Farms “for correction”.

That happened Aug. 5, 2009.

The volume of eggs involved is censored out of the report.

Other documents indicate that large lots of eggs were condemned by inspectors because they failed to meet Grade A standards. Some of the reports indicate the number of cracks and dirts found in the packaged eggs.

There are also many reports detailing deficiencies at the Burnbrae and Maple Lynn facilities, such as cracks in the walls, dirty drains, dust and dirt and ceilings that are not smooth and impervious.

The reports tend to confirm allegations lawyer Donald Good made that “everything that (L.H.) Gray (and Sons Ltd. was doing, Burnbrae was doing.”

Good, acting on behalf of Svante Lind, owner of Best Choice Eggs, has accused Gray, Burnbrae and the Ontario egg marketing board of conspiracy to drive Lind out of the egg-grading business.

One of the allegations is that Gray and Burnbrae, to keep Lind from importing eggs from the United States, supplied him with Ontario eggs that were woefully deficient of the grade standards claimed.

Gray and Hudson have denied all of the allegations. Neither the allegations nor the denials have been tested in court and no court date has yet been set.

Lawyers are still wrangling over how much evidence contained in electronic files from L.H. Gray and Sons Ltd., and being held by a supervising solicitor in Kitchener, will be allowed as evidence in the multi-million-dollar lawsuit.