Personal Injury Law

USDA Shuts Down School Lunch Program's Beef Source

Schools across America were left pulling beef from their lunch menus after Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing was caught mistreating "downer" cows.  In doing their reports on the local school districts, most television stations showed some images from the Humane Society video that was taken by an undercover operative.

After a week of that, enough was enough for the United States Department of Agriculture, which announced the Chino, CA slaughter house was going from being suspended to shut down. Dr. Richard Raymond, USDA's undersecretary for food safety, said:

"On Feb. 4, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) suspended inspection at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company based on the establishment's clear violation of Federal regulations and the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. This Notice of Suspension is a regulatory course of action available when FSIS finds egregious violations of humane handling regulations.

At the time allegations were revealed on Jan. 30, the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company voluntarily stopped operations on Feb. 1. The USDA suspension will remain in effect and the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company will not be allowed to operate until written corrective actions are submitted and verified by FSIS   to ensure that animals are humanely handled.

When USDA meat inspectors leave the building with their purple stamps, you are pretty much out of the meat business until they come back.  Previously, USDA put a hold on products from the Chino plant and stopped its involvement with the school lunch program.   The "hold," however, is not a recall and state and local school districts  at this point are wondering what to do with the beef from Chino that is now held in their freezers.

A good wrap up of the situation can be found in today's Los Angeles Times here.

Full post as published by Mad Cow Blog on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).