Personal Injury Law

Chino Packing House Caught Taking Downers To Slaughter

Westland Meat Company/Hallmark Meat Packing own and operate a slaughterhouse in Chino, CA that they say has operated “under the strictest possible standards for animal welfare, occupational health and safety and food safety precautions for 10 years.”

Today, however, that Chino slaughterhouse is shut down because the Humane Society of the United States went public with a powerful video tape that shows downed animals being brutally forced through the packing house.

“The video appears to show employees jabbing downed cows in the eyes, using repeated electric shocks, dragging them with forklifts and tormenting them with water in efforts to move them into the slaughter chutes,” reports the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

“Downer Cows,” meaning animals that are not able to rise off the ground on their own, cannot be slaughtered for human use out of control for controlling diseases like Mad Cow.

One thing is certain; the video was powerful enough to rattle the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA was not only one of Westland’s regulators; it was one of its biggest customers. The government agency bought 27 million pounds of beef from Westland last year for the school lunch program.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer promised an investigation by USDA’s various arms.
"We are confident in our inspection system and the food safety regulations that ensure the safety and wholesomeness of the food supply. Among the federal safeguards in place, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) prohibits non-ambulatory disabled cattle and cattle tissue identified as specified risk materials for use in human food,” Schafer said a prepared statement.

Someone from the Humane Society took the video while working undercover inside the packing plant last fall. Two employees identified in the video by the company were immediately fired.

Full post as published by Mad Cow Blog on January 30, 2008 (boomark / email).