Beef recall

[grassfarmer]

Food recall now extends to ground products sold at
Safeway, Walmart, Coop, Extra Foods, No Frills,
Superstore, Loblaws, Metro, Costco and a whole host
of lesser outlets I hadn't heard of all across the
country.

Now can anybody see why allowing Nillsons to
become one of only two processors handling 90% of
the Canadian kill between them was a bad idea?
Cheap, sloppy outfit with their warring minimum
wage Somali/Sudanese workers. They aren't fit to be
running a dog food plant in my opinion.
So much for Alberta beef and Canadian beef being
the best in the world and expecting to export to
higher value markets.

[smcgrath76]

Blasphemer! - LOL

[gaucho]

Clearly a lack of traceability in terms of breaking up the production of trimmings into individual lots for isolation of Ecoli Tests... sad part it is one of 2 directions for the vast majority of many of the cattle that many of you on this thread ship into in one form or another.

[ALLFARMER]

Nilsson is spelled with 1 "L" and 2 "S"

Like them or not they deserve a basic level of
respect by at least spelling their name right.

[ASRG]

Just wondering....is Cargill any better than XL? They both are federally inspected, so should have the same standards?
I suspect it was just the luck of the draw? We've seen these kind of outbreaks from most plants at one time or another? Probably conditions are about the same at most plants? If one plant was really dirty, we might ask what were the federal inspectors doing?

[grassfarmer]

Oops I made a typo, I'm sure you never do that
allfarmer.
ASRG, yes I think there is a difference. I'm not a big
fan of Cargill either and these big plants are all
capable of ecoli outbreaks by the nature of their
operations. XL/Nilssons have a history of being a
cheap, sloppy/corner cutting outfit.

[BFW]

Grasfarmer how would you handle an illness caused by ecoli in the product you supply your customers. it could easily happen the difference being it could not be so widespread. This is a bad deal for everyone involved and I don't think it is necessarily thr result of "sloppy" work on the plants part. These pathogens are present in nature as and the consumer needs to know that that despite all the preventative measures taken the only way to eliminate the risk totally is to handle and cook the product properly.

[ALLFARMER]

Olds College had an old professor named Walt
Woywitka. In the first class with his new students
he always have them a spelling test. When the
test was over your neighbor corrected it. Then he
said if you got this may correct or over great. If
you got 5 or more wrong....(he looks around) you
don't deserve to be here. A couple girls were in
tears.

I have often pondered, do I surround myself with
people who tell me I screwed up! Or nice people
who just smile, nod and agree. The quiet folks
piss me off more.

[kato]

So what ever happened to the vaccine that was developed for this strain of e coli?

[grassfarmer]

BFW, I think there is a lesser risk with smaller plants,
certainly the one I deal with. It's the scale of these
operations and what they do with the carryover that
has caused many of these huge ecoli problems in the
past. Ironic when these big operators bent the ear of
Government to set the regulations so tight on the
small plants where the risk is so much less. Small
plants are going out of business while the big ones
causing the problems keep going with generous
Government support.
I stand my claim that these are sloppy, cheap
operators. Always operating run down plants at the
minimum standard to meet the regulations. Seem to
have no pride, just like they have no ambition to
market overseas. Just the lowest possible cost
operation exploiting captive supply cattle. They
should never have been allowed to take over the
Brooks plant in my opinion.

Allfarmer - so how "may" spelling mistakes did you
make? lol

[BFW]

This is not a size issue in my mind. All plants must meet or exceed the standards put in place by the CFIA or lose their licence to operate. The point is, despite best intentions, engines fail, planes crash, people die. We all suffer when these outbreaks happen because the public has been led to believe that government regulation will save them from harm and that they can be relieved of any responsibility for what ever happens when in fact they need to know that all food is indeed "organic" and subject to spoilage (caused by bacteria) and needs to be handled with care. No matter what system food is raised and processed in this will remain true.

[kato]

Beef recalls are never good for business. They damage the reputation of beef, and can make people hesitate to buy it.

so... If a recall hits a big plant, there are people possibly from coast to coast, and even outside the country who are affected. Hundreds of thousands of people worried about the safety of their food. Hundreds of thousands of people talking with their friends about how they don't trust the product.

and ... if a recall hits a small plant, there are a lot less people affected, a shorter trail to follow to get that beef back, and hundreds of thousands of people who will likely never hear about it. If they do hear about it they will say, "It didn't affect me, so it's no big deal."

The bigger the processors, the bigger the damage when something goes wrong. It's that old "putting your eggs in one basket thing again."

[BFW]

It is the media coverage of these events that creates the loss of confidence. There will continue to be beef recalls for ecoli contamination. Yes the impact would be smaller if production was spread amongst more plants but the media reporting will be the same.More public awareness of the food safety and handling aspects are what is required.

[grassfarmer]

BFW I don't agree with you. In practice the way the regulations are applied to small provincial plants versus the federal inspected plants are not equal. Look at the line speed in the big plants - it's ridiculous.
I don't blame the media, I don't blame the consumer this is a processing sector problem that can be managed better with less corner cutting and better batch tracking. I hate how "the industry" comes to the instant defense of XL. I heard someone from ABP on the radio stressing how safe the beef was, how good the regulations were, how the system was working as it should (excuse me only how much beef was recalled? and how many people poisoned?)
Would the same industy spokesmen jump to the defense of a small plant operator if they were a shoddy operator? I think not.
The same "industry spokesmen" that stood by and let Nilssons take over Lakeside and consolidate their stranglehold on the processing sector. You guys deserve each other.

[ALLFARMER]

Please forgive my typing errors. Driving a tri drive
Kenworth winch tractor (leather seats even)
hauling equipment. Nice quiet Cummins motor,
climate control cab. I am spoiled $35/hr to ride
around in this jet black beauty . Hauling skidders
to pavers, graders, packers, steamer trucks, fuel
trucks, trac hoes, rock trucks, gravel crushers,
ashfalt plants, tractors with disks, heavy loaders.
Just trying to do my part of a million bucks a
month fuel bill lol.

210 animals at home grazing what should have
been my second cut of hay.