27.feb.08
The Plain Dealer
http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living-1/1204018442153120.xml&coll=2
Retailers have a stake in food safety and what happens with the nation's largest-ever beef recall, say four area businesses.
Tom Heinen, co-owner of Heinen's Fine Foods, the Cleveland-based, 17-store chain of supermarkets, says representatives from his stores make periodic visits to the sources of their beef, which they market as free of antibiotics and hormones.
"We look at how they treat their animals as well as process [them]," says Heinen. Heinen's does not purchase from Westland/Hallmark, the California-based company involved in the most recent recall, but from smaller processors: Meyer Natural Angus of Helmville, Mont., and PM Beef of Windom, Minn.
"There isn't a big secret when you go through a plant, whether they're doing things right. Because it's so important to their track record, and their profit," Heinen says.
Kimberly Pupillo, a Giant Eagle spokeswoman, says in an e-mail that the chain did not buy any of the recalled meat. In a separate e-mail exchange, Dan Donovan, another Giant Eagle spokesman, states: "As a retailer, we work only with suppliers who demonstrate a track record of food safety and adherence to and/or outperformance of all USDA guidelines."
You know, that all sounds remarkably like common sense to me (Porker please confirm). Could it be that maybe, just maybe, the retailers, packers and producers all have an interest in common here? "E pluribus unum" ring a bell?
SH, you make a good point about getting the vaccinations down to two to achieve the same level of protection currently afforded by three. One would be better but unlikely in a non-live vaccine. My guess is that the timing/age at innoculation would be a big factor. Clearly needs more work. if everybody could agree to play nice in the sandbox, and push the Feds to throw some money at the problem, E. coli O157:H7 has every possibility of going the way of smallpox.