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Now Cargill

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Anonymous

Guest
4 metro kids sickened by e. coli


The Minnesota Department of Health says four children became ill from E. coli bacteria last month after eating ground beef patties purchased at three Sam's Club stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The Health Department said the children, who all live in the metro area, became ill between September 10th and September 20th after eating ground beef patties that were purchased frozen under the name "American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties" from Sam's Club stores in Eagan, Maple Grove and White Bear Lake.
"To the best of our knowledge, it's just Sam's Club right now. But of course, it's being investigated much further, and we may come out with additional information," said Dr. Kirk Smith, of the Minnesota Department of Health.

Sam's Club says the patties were produced by Cargill beginning August 26th and had an expiration date of February 12th, 2008.

A Cargill spokesman contacted by The Associated Press said the company would have no comment until Monday.

Health officials say one of the four infected children remains hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious complication of e coli infection that can lead to kidney failure.

Sam's Club says it voluntarily removed the product from its stores nationwide after the illnesses were reported.

Customers are asked to return any remaining patties purchased after August 26th to the store or destroy them.

"These ground beef patties are in people's freezers, in their homes. So we want to get the word out that they definitely don't eat them," said Smith. "Throw them away. Or take back to Sam's Club. But by all means, don't use them."
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
With the same time period involved- it makes you wonder if Cargill supplied trim to Topps for grinding... :???:
 

PORKER

Well-known member
If the recalls are the same ecoli then Cargill must have shipped them BEEF. I sure would like a list of the Topps wholesale suppliers, there is a snake in the woodpile! Maybe its some of the old ConAgri frozen beef from their last million's pound recall ? That is what happened in the EU,old frozen rotten beef stored for 5-8 or more years put back into the food chain. Big Lawsuits and Government investagations going on in the EU. Maybe some of that beef was bought by Topps? Somebody knows as Topps needed CHEAP BEEF to match WalMarts slogan of falling prices!!!
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Sam's Club says the patties were produced by Cargill beginning August 6-26th and had an expiration date of February 12th, 2008.

A Cargill spokesman contacted by The Associated Press said the company would have no comment until Monday.

That's enough time to cover their tracks >>>>>
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Sam’s Club Recalls Meat After Illness


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 7, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 6 (AP) — The Sam’s Club warehouse chain has pulled a brand of ground beef patties from its shelves nationwide after four children who ate the food, produced by Cargill Inc., developed E. coli illness.


Cargill, one of the largest U.S. food producers, is recalling 840,000 pounds of ground beef, on the heels of the nation’s second largest meat recall. Cargill, meanwhile, said the hamburgers were processed at its meat packing plant in Butler, Wisconsin. An investigation is underway to trace the source of the contamination.

Cargill asked customers to return patties bought after Aug. 26 to the store or destroy them.

The children became ill from Sept. 10 to Sept. 20 after eating ground beef patties bought frozen under the name American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties from three Sam’s Club stores in the Twin Cities area.

Sam’s Club voluntarily removed the product from its stores after the illnesses were reported, the company said.

The patties were produced by Cargill, based in Wayzata, Minn., and had an expiration date of Feb. 12, 2008, Sam’s Club said in a statement. They were coded UPC 0002874907056 Item .700141.

Sam’s Club warehouse is owned by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark.
 

andybob

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
And ALL of us are getting a black eye on every recall. We're losing customers' folks.

Which is why the move to direct selling is the first step towards putting at least some of the industry back into the hands of the producers. It is essential that small abattoirs are kept in business or this option will no longer be available, and the first step toward being able to eventually direct market all beef produced by the ranchers interested in taking this route will be lost. To meet long term market demand, ranchers will need to network at all levels to ensure supplies of breeding stock, and a consistant supply of quality beef, with a trademark which could be breed linked. Long term co-operation would possibly involve investing in a seperate processing and marketing company with some shareholder/managers experienced in the running and marketing of beef, leaving the cattle men/women to do what they do best, yet have majority shares which gives controll of the quality of the marketed beef, and the added income from their shares. We did something similar in the pig industry in Rhodesia and it worked really well, had the farmers tried to run the whole show it would have failed. As the beef marketing was government subsidised, marketing for we cattle producers was never a problem.
 

Ben Roberts

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
With the same time period involved- it makes you wonder if Cargill supplied trim to Topps for grinding... :???:


No grinder buys trim from only one packer, care to guess why.

Best Regards
Ben Roberts
 

RobertMac

Well-known member
Ben Roberts said:
Oldtimer said:
With the same time period involved- it makes you wonder if Cargill supplied trim to Topps for grinding... :???:


No grinder buys trim from only one packer, care to guess why.

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

I wonder who is going to take charge of Topps' trim in storage...and why??????

Andybob, you are dead on traget!
 

rkaiser

Well-known member
Which is why the move to direct selling is the first step towards putting at least some of the industry back into the hands of the producers. It is essential that small abattoirs are kept in business or this option will no longer be available, and the first step toward being able to eventually direct market all beef produced by the ranchers interested in taking this route will be lost. To meet long term market demand, ranchers will need to network at all levels to ensure supplies of breeding stock, and a consistant supply of quality beef, with a trademark which could be breed linked. Long term co-operation would possibly involve investing in a seperate processing and marketing company with some shareholder/managers experienced in the running and marketing of beef, leaving the cattle men/women to do what they do best, yet have majority shares which gives controll of the quality of the marketed beef, and the added income from their shares. We did something similar in the pig industry in Rhodesia and it worked really well, had the farmers tried to run the whole show it would have failed. As the beef marketing was government subsidised, marketing for we cattle producers was never a problem.

Right on andybob.
Only hope that some of the folks at Rcalf are listening to words like this. If this were the focus of any producer group - the support would be overwhelming.

How about a pig story from Denmark.

Against All Odds: The Danish Pork Industry Success Story
If we were to analyze the pork industry in Denmark using conventional
indicators of cost competitiveness, we would find that, relative to Canada:
• land in Denmark is scarce and high priced;
• Danish feed costs are inflated by the effect of the European Union’s
Common Agricultural Policy;
• processing lines in packing plants are far slower, so that fixed costs
must be spread over a lower throughput;
• labour costs are almost three times as high; and finally,
• Denmark is much further from the lucrative Japanese market, resulting
in higher transportation costs.
This basic cost comparison suggests that the Danish industry should
be highly uncompetitive in world markets. The export statistics tell a
different story.
In fact, Denmark is the world’s largest exporter of pork, accounting
for nearly 30% of global trade. In 1999, this small country on the northern
edge of Europe accounted for 29% of Japanese pork imports. Denmark
competes head-on with Canada for a 17% share of US imports.
Moreover, the pork industry in Denmark is not heavily supported by
8 Hobbs, Cooney, & Fulton
EU subsidies; it receives relatively small, intermittent export subsidies—
not nearly enough to support a global exporting strategy. The answer
lies, rather, in the organization of the industry and the vertical co-ordination
of activities from breeding to production, slaughter, processing,
and distribution.
Ninety-seven percent of Danish production is channelled through
three farmer-owned co-operatives that slaughter and process their
members’ hogs. All the co-ops belong to Danske Slagterier (DS), an
umbrella organization that undertakes marketing activities on behalf of
the industry, and conducts research on breeding, production, processing,
and markets. Communication and co-operation are the watchwords
of the Danish industry. Danske Slagterier gathers intelligence on consumer
preferences in key markets and uses this information at all stages
of the chain, improving quality and responding to consumer needs. It
was market research, for example, that determined that Japanese consumers
prefer pork that is deep red/pink in colour. This led to research
both in controlling meat colour through genetics and in methods of
objectively grading carcasses on the basis of colour. Ultimately, these
initiatives will enable the industry to produce “Japanese-quality” hogs
specifically for that market.
Through close working relationships with—or ownership of—
processing and distribution firms, processors are able to tailor their
products to the needs of particular markets and market segments. The
emphasis is on meeting the needs of specific markets. Sophisticated
carcass-grading techniques provide feedback to farmers on the quality
and suitability of individual carcasses. Traceability, food safety, and quality
assurance are all top priorities, and are all facilitated by close vertical
co-ordination along the chain.
The Danish case demonstrates that the value-chain concept can be
applied on an industry-wide scale. This is not how we normally think
about value chains—it is, in fact, quite different from some of the other
value chains that are discussed in this booklet—but it demonstrates
some of the same principles: communication, co-ordination, and co-operation
are central to the international competitiveness of an industry, even
to the extent of overcoming natural cost disadvantages and making it a
global leader.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
In some ways, the USDA is fighting the last war, when sick and dying livestock were dragged to slaughter. That campaign began following the 1906 indictment of the meat industry in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," said Michael R. Taylor, who headed the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service in the Clinton administration.

The current inspection scheme is obsolete and wasteful, Taylor said. Much as they did 100 years ago, USDA inspectors check hundreds of millions beef and pork carcasses and some 8 billion chickens annually _ devoting about 2 seconds to each bird, he said.

Such a system contributes little to food safety, the National Academy of Sciences concluded 20 years ago, he noted. Instead, the focus should be on checking for E. coli bacteria in beef, and other microscopic dangers in poultry, he said.

"The USDA has a 100-year mandate for carcass-by-carcass examination, which is simply not effective for identifying pathogens," said Taylor, now a professor at George Washington University. "We don't have much problem with diseased animals coming into slaughterhouses; we have trouble with microbes."

In Taylor's view, the USDA should still have inspectors at every meat and poultry plant, but they would be focused on sampling the product to develop a picture of microbial activity, while the FDA, which regulators other foods, would become more focused on preventing outbreaks.

Slaughterhouses are not required to test carcasses for pathogens, and if they do, they are not required to hold onto the meat until they get results, according to the American Meat Institute, a trade group. Many meatpackers test their finished product, such as frozen or raw hamburger, but that is not required, the AMI said.
 

Brad S

Well-known member
Cleaning up E Coli begins at the feed yard. Cattle sold grade and steal er I mean yield can be left standing for 24 hours to empty out. If the fecal matter is reduced by 30 pounds, its much easier to contain at slaughter.
 

RobertMac

Well-known member
In Taylor's view, the USDA should still have inspectors at every meat and poultry plant, but they would be focused on sampling the product to develop a picture of microbial activity, while the FDA, which regulators other foods, would become more focused on preventing outbreaks.

Slaughterhouses are not required to test carcasses for pathogens, and if they do, they are not required to hold onto the meat until they get results, according to the American Meat Institute, a trade group. Many meatpackers test their finished product, such as frozen or raw hamburger, but that is not required, the AMI said.

This is a lie or there is a double standard for small, independent packers and the large corporate packers!!!!!
 

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