I went shopping for meat the other day at a small butcher shop in the neighbourhood. I’ve done business there off and on for almost 40 years. You pay a little more, but it’s worth it I think.
A sign at the door the other day proclaimed “No Recalls Here”. This followed huge problems with e coli at the XL Foods packing plant in Brooks Alberta. It forced the largest recall of beef products in Canadian history.
Now comes word that an American company called J B S has taken over the XL plant. But wait, there’s more. The American company is a subsidiary of JBS S.A. of Brazil. For now JBS, which operates out of Greeley Colorado is managing the Brooks facility, and they have an option to buy.
The Alberta community is delighted because more than a thousand jobs have been in jeopardy for several weeks. The union representing the workers is sort of delighted, but the rest of us meat eating Canadians should seriously do more ‘due diligence’ when shopping for that next barbeque.
Chances are this new multi-national ownership group will be driven strictly by the bottom line. How did all this happen anyway? Ag minister Gerry Ritz, who shrugged off the deadly listeria nightmare four years ago as the “death of a thousand cold cuts”, says he’s not to blame, even though hundreds of meat inspectors were laid off in last spring’s budget.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for the safety of what we buy, but they’re being pushed around rather shamelessly.
There was a time when Canadians traveling to Mexico and other foreign lands were loudly warned “Don’t drink the water, and be careful what you eat. You don’t know where it’s been.” Now the best advice seems to be “cook that meat until it’s completely gray, and don’t stray too far from the bathroom.”
I trust that local butcher shop of mine, and I’m sticking with him.
I’m Roger Currie
You can listen to Roger Currie’s commentary by clicking on the link below:
Food safety concerns should not end with the JBS takeover of XL foods and it would be naive to expect that JBS (the world’s largest beef and pork producer) is the white knight that will rescue us from tainted beef (not that I am suggesting you are in any way naive on this point).
In 2009, JBS Swift, of Greely, Colorado, recalled more than 421,000 pounds of beef products because of possible E. coli contamination. While one might hope that the lessons learned by the company in 2009 can be passed on to its latest acquisition in Alberta, that could be a vain hope.
These meat processing plants are set up to handle massive quantities of beef at an incredible pace. When volume and speed are cranked up to maximize profitability, contamination is inevitable. Couple that with cutbacks in inspection staff, and you have a perfect storm in the making.
Stick with your small butcher and hope that he is dealing equally small, scrupulous suppliers.