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New Creekstone Plan

Mike

Well-known member
4/21/2006 6:00:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
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‘Plant by plant’ approval urged

Richard Smith
Freelance Writer

TOKYO — Going against the grain of the U.S. Meat Export Federation and most players in the U.S. beef industry, Creekstone Farms of Arkansas City, Kan., is willing to accept a blanket testing of cattle for BSE if that will reassure Japanese customers.

CEO John Stewart told a meeting of Japan’s main opposition party’s BSE Strategy Headquarters this winter that he believes U.S. beef is safe.

“Frankly speaking, I do not think individual testing is necessary,” Stewart said.

However, “I do not think my customer is always right, but I think my customer is my customer,” he said to assembled Diet (Japanese parliament) members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Japanese and foreign press.

Creekstone Farms is committed to export its beef to Japan but, Stewart warned, others in the U.S. beef industry are setting their sights on another Asian country.

Stewart pointed out that South Korea is expected to lift its ban on U.S. beef within 45 days. The U.S. will then be able to export to that country beef up to 30 months old, as long as it is deboned.

Such meat is considered safe from BSE according to international standards, but Japan limited imports from the U.S. to beef 20 months old and younger.

Stewart emphasized the average age of cattle at slaughter in the U.S. is 24 months.

“Finding beef 20 months old and younger is difficult and costly,” he said.

After lifting a two-year ban on U.S. beef because of BSE on Dec. 12, Japan closed its doors again on Jan. 20 when parts banned under export to Japan rules were found in a shipment of veal from a small company in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Stewart said U.S. beef exporters have to be very careful with Japan, because they can make a very big investment in the country, and risk seeing everything stop in one day.

“We are bothered by the fact that if one tiny company makes a silly mistake, then everybody loses,” he said.

Part of the problem stems from a policy of blanket approval of beef from all plants in the U.S. at one time, Stewart believes. Such a policy overlooks the varying degrees of capabilities within the industry, he said.

“If every U.S. beef plant were like Creekstone, I would not be with you today,” Stewart said.

Instead of a blanket approval, Stewart proposed Japan adopt a “plant-by-plant” approval system.

Highlights of such a system would be:

• Japan would identify U.S. companies that want to export beef to Japan.

• Those companies would be required to follow each and every export to Japan rule.

• Companies that cannot follow the rules would be forbidden from exporting to Japan.

• If there is any problem in a processing plant, that plant would be delisted.

“The system would raise the bar for the whole industry in the United States,” Stewart said.

Creekstone Farms received visits by two Diet fact-finding teams.

Stewart, accompanied by Creekstone international and ethnic sales vice president Rich Swearingen, planned his trip to Japan upon resumption of trade.

Sticking to the plan despite the renewed ban, he accepted the BSESH’s invitation to talk.

The executives also visited their Japanese customers.

“Our customers are very supportive. They want the market to reopen,” Stewart said.

So does the LDP, the DPJ and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Stewart concluded from talks he had. “But there are procedures,” he said.

However, the daily Nihon Nogyo Shimbun reported Mexican beef is becoming a substitute to U.S. products since an economic partnership agreement between Japan and Mexico, in effect since last April, considerably reduced tariffs on Mexican beef.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Big Muddy rancher said:
Why doesn't Creekstone just send the brain stem with each box of beef to Japan then they can do their own test?

I've kind of wondered the same myself. I kind of visioned sending the brain seperately with a code on the box and each package of meat from the animal with the same code - then I decided it would be a huge pain and was treating the symptoms and not the disease - the disease being the USDA carrying water for the big packers. The USDA should be making things easy for US companies to export ag. products, not standing in the way of commerce with shaky transparent excuses.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Big Muddy rancher said:
Why doesn't Creekstone just send the brain stem with each box of beef to Japan then they can do their own test?

Old Hat

EXCLUSIVE: Creekstone seeks to ship brain stem samples to Japan for BSE testing

by Daniel Yovich on 4/14/04 for Meatingplace.com


As Creekstone Farms mulls its legal options in the wake of the Agriculture Department's refusal to allow the company to test all of its cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the Arkansas City, Kan.-based processor is now seeking approval to ship brain stem tissue from product harvested at Creekstone to Japan for BSE testing.

In a three page letter dated Tuesday and addressed to Undersecretaries J.B. Penn and Bill Hawks, as well as Dale Moore, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman's chief of staff, Creekstone CEO John Stewart and COO Bill Fielding said the company will challenge USDA's refusal to allow the company to test for BSE all the cattle it slaughters. Stewart and Fileding said they are "analyzing our legal options" and that the company is now losing about $200,000 per day because of the Japanese embargo on U.S. beef.

Stewart and Fielding asked USDA reconsider its decision, and, if USDA refuses to allow the company to test all of its cattle, "approve the procedure whereby Creekstone Farms is allowed to ship brain stem samples to Japan for BSE testing" in that government's laboratories.

"Please understand our situation as well as our consternation over why the USDA will not embrace our plan," Stewart and Fielding said in reference to USDA's April 8 announcement it would not approve Creekstone's original request. "Creekstone Farms plans to test more cattle than the USDA, at a lower cost. If our plan were to be implemented, we would test over 300,000 head of cattle over the course of a year, versus the USDA proposed cattle population of approximately 220,000 head."
 

Mike

Well-known member
Posted by News on 13:34:44 4/15/2004 from 134.121.87.141:

US Meat Firm Eyes Japan BSE Tests To Resume Exports-Kyodo
(DOW JONES NEWSWIRES)

A U.S. meat processor has applied for U.S. government approval to ship brain-stem samples of cattle to Japan for mad-cow disease testing in a bid to help it resume beef exports to Japan, Kyodo News reported Thursday.

The Kansas-based processor, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, proposed the measure after the U.S. Agriculture Department rejected its request for the U.S. government to allow it to test all its cattle for mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Kyodo reported, citing an article on Meat Marketing and Technology magazine's Web site.

In a letter dated Tuesday, Creekstone asked the department to reconsider the decision and said that if it continues to reject the request to test all cattle, it should "approve the procedure whereby Creekstone is allowed to ship brain-stem samples to Japan for BSE testing" in the Japanese government's laboratories, according to the magazine.

Creekstone also reiterated the company is considering challenging the department's rejection of its request to test all cattle in court, it said.

The United States detected its first BSE case in a Canadian-born cow in the state of Washington in late December, prompting many countries, including Japan, to ban U.S. beef imports.

Creekstone has been hit hard by the import ban as it ships about 25% of its products to Japan and other overseas markets.

Japan, which was the world's largest buyer of U.S. beef in value terms before the import ban was enforced, has said the U.S. must test all cattle slaughtered for human consumption for BSE or provide equivalent safety assurances before the ban is to be lifted.
 
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