Perceived Food Safety Risks

[cakadu]

This morning I happened to be watching the news and caught a sound bite about a smaller processor and his beef buying customers. We're hearing lots about the risks of BSE, but in the clips, there were other things that were of far greater concern to me.

None of the employees appeared to be wearing hair nets and they were all working around the meat.

Also, none of the employees in the clip were wearing gloves at all - even those cheap plastic attempts at food safety.

Those sorts of things are simple everyday things that could cut down on some contamination. It is hard to say if the employees washed their hands between handling each customer's meat, but it does make me wonder. It is so easy to cross contaiminate, yet we sometimes overlook those types of food safety measures and this goes on every single day.

[ValueChainFX]

Good observation cakadu in fact you can see this in many places. One must be careful where we take this type of a conversation in a public forum but if you are thinking of food safety in the terms you observed, ask how many facilities actually follow food safe practices, do they have a HACCP program or even know what HACCP's are? One of the challenges with a standard provincial inspection program is all the (quote from one of our industry leaders) "MOM & POP" businesses out there!

Another question comes from this and that is, if they "DID" enforce all the rules Federal and/or Provincial how many plants would go under? The complexity of the question goes deep into our industry, but somewhere, some time that question will "Hit The Fan"!

Actually you are probably in a good spot to find out a little more information on that question and do some silent observations. I would however not ask any government sources as they swear up and down the rules are in place and the practices are being followed! Personal observation of my own (and probably every primary producer that has ever taken animals to a plant) shows me we have a long way to go before we have bragging rights!

[rsomer]

On the topic of perceived food safety risks, Agri-ville readers might be interested in this link to a Washington Post article that outlines how the science determined what we now call Specified Risk Materials present a risk of infection and conversely why meat does not.
A very informative article, and good information. I got the link from the AnimalNet clipping service.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52581-2004Jan3.html