meat processing

Less than two weeks ago, Tyson food executives, officials in Tonganoxie and Leavenworth counties in Kansas and Gov. Sam Brownback revealed a $320-million plan to develop "a chicken hatchery, feed mill, meatpacking plant and 300 to 400 poultry grow houses," reports the Topeka Capital-Journal. By Monday, 2,400 residents, including many ranchers, had gathered in the streets to protest the chicken plant, cheering a sign held by a 4-year-old: “No Tyson! No friggin’ chickens! No kidding!”

JBS chairman Joesley Batista and chief executive Wesley Batista resigned from senior posts "in a corruption scandal that threatens to topple Brazil's president Michel Temer," said Reuters. The brothers, who own the world's largest meat producer, which has operations in the United States, admitted to paying $150 million, mostly in bribes, to nearly 2,000 politicians in Brazil, including its past three presidents, said the Wall Street Journal.

Students at Colorado State University have started a petition drive because of plans to " build a new facility that houses a meat harvesting facility, which some students call a slaughterhouse," says the Rocky Mountain Collegian. The facility is part of a partnership with JBS USA, part of the giant meatpacking company based in Brazil.

Brazil's environmental regulator says that meatpacking giant JBS "for years knowingly bought cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land," says Reuters. JBS denied the allegation, which comes at the same time the Brazilian meat industry is reeling from a meat-inspection scandal.

Brazil is the world's largest red meat and poultry exporter, but it is losing customers in a scandal over allegations that meatpackers have sold unsafe products for years, said the BBC. Four markets — China, the EU, South Korea and Chile — that account for nearly one-third of meat exports "have now announced restrictions on Brazilian meat."

Two years after soaring to record highs, "hog prices have collapsed to levels far below break-even," says Purdue economist Chris Hurt. Hog farmers will lose an average $10 a head this year and $16 a head in 2017 because there are so many hogs being fed for slaughter, they could exceed the capacity of packing plants to handle them.

It could be capsulized as "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Steak." At the meat counter and online, retailers "are taking the local food craze to new heights," says the Wall Street Journal, by selling cuts of meat that can be traced to an individual animal on a specific farm. It's called "single origin" meat.

Some workers at U.S. packing plants pay a high price for their jobs, says Harvest Public Media in a three-part series that starts today with new installments through Thursday. "Employees aren't cattle going through the chutes," the widow of one worker tells HPM. "They're people with families."

A government report says the injury rate for meat industry workers has improved greatly yet injuries are more common than in the rest of the manufacturing sector, reports Harvest Public Media. "But injuries in the meat industry are also likely to be under-reported," it says.

A retired USDA meat inspector "is joining forces with critics who say that a trial high-speed hog processing system piloted by USDA is a food safety nightmare," reports Food Safety News.

"Farmers across Alaska are fighting to keep a state-run slaughterhouse from closing its doors," reports KTUU-TV in Anchorage. Mt. McKinley Meats and Sausage, one of only three meat-processing plants in Alaska, operates with a workforce from the state prison system.

A videotape released by an anti-cruelty group raised serious concerns about operations at a large hog slaughter plant and prompted a USDA investigation, says the Washington Post. The footage was filmed by an employee of the nonprofit Compassion over Killing at Quality Pork Processors in Austin, Minn., which is a supplier of Hormel, the maker of SPAM.