Currently browsing posts about: Meat

The meat industry is in deep trouble.  Even industry insiders are taking it to task.

I could hardly believe this piece in Forbes by Hank Cardello.  It sounds just like something I would write.

3 Ways To Fix The Meat Industry’s Empathy Problem

The meat industry is antithetical to everything Millennials value. Their treatment of employees runs counter to Millennials’ No. 2 value: empathy, according to a Gallup report. Their role in global warming is antithetical to Millennials’ concern for the environment. Their price-fixing is antithetical to Millennials’ demand for transparency and decency. Their role in promoting products increasingly linked to global warming and poor health is antithetical to the priorities of younger workers, who say they want to work for a company with a purpose.

If you want to understand why meat has become the focus of political fights about the effects of Covid-19, it helps to start with why the meat industry is so powerful.

I’ve always explained it this way: cattle are raised in every state, every state has two senators, every senator attracts hordes of lobbyists.

Food Safety News takes a deeper dive:

The meat industry effectively controls the Senate and House of Representatives by stopping a bill before it even reaches the floor. All legislation related to food and agriculture crosses the desks of the respective Agriculture Committees, so effort is targeted to build relationships, tailor strategic communications, and send influential campaign contributions to stay on the pulse of new developments.  For bills that do reach the floor, swift action is taken.

Over the years, proposals to have meat processors become partially or fully responsible for the cost of USDA inspections, which are currently provided without cost for routine operation, are quickly shot down as “unwise and unnecessary,” without explanation or discussion. Ironically, industry also seeks to reduce the presence of USDA inspectors by seducing the agency into allowing their workers to complete the tasks on their tab– but more on that later.

Yesterday’s Politico: has this headline “As meatpacking plants reopen, workers terrified of coronavirus risk” [this may be behind a paywall]

The latest Agriculture Department figures show that U.S. meat production is returning to nearly last year’s capacity, accomplishing the White House’s goal of keeping the food supply steady during the pandemic…At least 44 meatpacking workers have died from the virus and more than 3,000 have tested positive, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. About 30 plants have closed in the past two months, affecting more than 45,000 workers.

A spokesperson for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency responsible for worker safety, told POLITICO that it has received more than 4,400 Covid-19-related safety complaints, but has issued only a single citation related to the pandemic….An employee at a JBS plant in Greeley, Colo., where eight workers have died from the virus, told POLITICO that although the company has required social distancing in break rooms and other areas, workers remain standing shoulder to shoulder on assembly lines. The employee was granted anonymity out of concern about retribution from the company after speaking out.

Some other items about the meat situation:

• The New York Times has a lot to say about covid-19 cases among packinghouse workers
• Cattle producers reopen closed Fort Pierre processing plant
• Business Insider has a report on the sudden interest in small meat processors.   Reuters does too.  It’s about time—I hope this interest lasts.
• Politico reports on the rise in retail beef prices while prices for cattle are low
• The Food and Environment Reporting Network talks about the decline in meat production
• Is automation of meat slaughter coming?  Wired writes about Denmark’s meat plants
• Jonathan Safran Foer  writes in the Washington Post: “Meat is not essential. Why are we killing for it?

I was particularly interested in this article from Food Safety News: “What does the Defense Production Act have to do with food?”

This past week, FDA and USDA issued a Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Potential Use of the Defense Production Act with Regard to FDA-Regulated Food During the COVID-19 Pandemic. The MOU refers to “potential use” because USDA has not yet invoked its DPA authority. Nor will it, in any likelihood. Messaging matters, however, and so the MOU may still operate to significantly influence the food system. What message does it send exactly?

Good question, and one well worth answering.  The author, Thomas Gremillion, has much to say about the topic, and compellingly.  He argues:

All of this is to say that the April 28 Executive Order is a paper tiger. But to the extent that the Administration sought to cow state and local public health officials, it may have succeeded. According to recent reporting, “As of May 19, nearly all of the once-closed meatpacking plants have started back up.” Large meatpackers have declined to disclose data on how many of their workers have fallen ill or died, but according to an analysis by Johns Hopkins University researchers, the rate of COVID-19 infections for counties with very large meatpacking plants was twice the rate in counties without for the week following the Trump executive order. 

This, from the Iowa Department of Public Health:

Enjoy the day, if you can.

Three exceptionally thoughtful and interesting pieces by people who have been writing about food and food systems for a long time. 

Jane Ziegelman in the New York Times: America’s Obsession With Cheap Meat

During World War I, the idea that American vitality was tied to a meat-heavy diet dictated how the troops were fed. To give them a fighting edge, tremendous quantities of beef and pork were shipped overseas, enough to provide soldiers with 20 ounces of beef a day or 12 ounces of bacon. The cost was staggering, but the Army refused to trim meat rations…It’s no coincidence that the archetypal American hero, the cowboy, is a cattle herder, or that we claim hamburgers as the quintessential American food. Or that when Mr. Trump welcomed the 2019 football college champions to the White House, he offered them Big Macs and Quarter Pounders. Much of what has defined us as Americans is expressed through our meat consumption. 

Eric Schlosser in The Atlantic:  America’s Slaughterhouses Aren’t Just Killing Animals

By issuing that order [Trump’s Executive Order], Trump helped an industry that has long been a strong supporter of the Republican Party. He reduced the likelihood that meat prices would greatly increase in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election. And he confirmed what critics of the large meatpackers have said for years: Some of these companies care more about profits than the lives of their workers, the well-being of the communities where they operate, and the health of the American people.

Michael Pollan  in the New York Review of Books: The Sickness in Our Food Supply

Slaughterhouses have become hot zones for contagion, with thousands of workers now out sick and dozens of them dying.  This should come as no surprise: social distancing is virtually impossible in a modern meat plant, making it an ideal environment for a virus to spread. In recent years, meatpackers have successfully lobbied regulators to increase line speeds, with the result that workers must stand shoulder to shoulder cutting and deboning animals so quickly that they can’t pause long enough to cover a cough, much less go to the bathroom, without carcasses passing them by. Some chicken plant workers, given no regular bathroom breaks, now wear diapers.  A worker can ask for a break, but the plants are so loud he or she can’t be heard without speaking directly into the ear of a supervisor. Until recently slaughterhouse workers had little or no access to personal protective equipment; many of them were also encouraged to keep working even after exposure to the virus. Add to this the fact that many meat-plant workers are immigrants who live in crowded conditions with little or no access to health care, and you have a population at dangerously high risk of infection.

I’m trying to keep up with meat crisis items.  Here are two.

CULLING

This is too upsetting to even talk about.

• Letter from members of Congress asking for help with animal disposal
• Instructions on how to do this
• The New York Times on the details of pig destruction

HARVEST BOXES AGAIN

The USDA’s current version of Harvest Boxes for food assistance is called the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, as I wrote about in a previous post.

The idea is that all those food animals and other foods that are being destroyed because of food chain problems will be collected, packed in boxes, and distributed to food banks  to be further distributed to people in need.

The USDA has now issued the contracts to companies who have bid to do this work.

Oops.  Some getting millions of dollars in contracts have no experience with this sort of thing.  As Politico reveals,

Most of the most well-known companies in the business, from large national names like FreshPoint, a division of Sysco, to more regional companies like Keany Produce, based in Maryland, were left off.  Muzyk of Baldor Specialty Foods said it’s clear that some companies applied without understanding what’s really required to purchase, pack and distribute fresh food at the scale the program requires. It requires proper cold storage capacity and trucks as well as food safety practices, particularly for produce which is vulnerable to contamination.

The contracts have raised eyebrows throughout the produce industry.

The Packer, which writes about produce-industry matters, wants to know how those contracts were awarded.

But questions immediately began circulating: How does a high-dollar events promoter pull down the largest contract ($39 million) in Texas? Why are companies without Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act licenses, warehouses, coolers or trucks receiving multi-million contracts, some well beyond the annual revenue of the company?…United Fresh Produce Association president and CEO Tom Stenzel wrote to Bruce Summers, administrator of the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, which is overseeing the contracts, with a list of 15 questions.

The Packer, also wonders what will go in those boxes

The U.S. Department of Agriculture gives companies participating in the Farmers to Families Food Box Program leeway on what’s going in the produce boxes. The Packer wants to see what Farmers to Families’ contract recipients are packing into their boxes.

This looks like a disaster waiting to happen.  Companies with no track-record for these kinds of logistics are supposed to collect food, pack it, and get it to food banks.

Food banks, largely run by volunteers, are supposed to get the boxes to those who need food.

I can’t imagine how this can work.  In the meantime, the culling continues.

Additions

• The USDA responded to the letter from United Fresh.
• United Fresh is pretty happy with the USDA’s response.

Let’s review what’s happened here.

• When workers at meat packing plants became ill, public health authorities ordered some plants to close.
• Meat companies—and some state governors—resisted.
• Because of consolidation in the meat industry, plant closures threatened the meat supply.
• John Tyson, a Big Meat owner, lobbied President Trump to keep plants open.

Trump ordered the plants to open via an Executive Order deeming meat essential to the national defense.

It is important that processors of beef, pork, and poultry (“meat and poultry”) in the food supply chain continue operating and fulfilling orders to ensure a continued supply of protein for Americans.  [Nutritional comment: grains and vegetables provide plenty of protein.]

A Missouri Court ruled that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the primary jurisdiction over worker safety in meat processing plants during the Covid-19 crisis—not health agencies.   The USDA applauded this ruling as “directly in line with what the Federal government has been calling for companies and communities to do in light of the President’s Executive Order.”

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue instructed companies to open, explaining that USDA was now in charge of making sure they do.

He wrote another order saying that “Maintaining the health and safety of plant employees in addition to ensuring continued operations and a plentiful food supply during this unprecedented time is paramount.”

This, alas, defies credulity, and it is no surprise that groups representing slaughterhouse workers say not enough is being done to protect them.  OSHA is not enforcing CDC guidelines for social distancing, frequent hand washing and other such measures.

Indeed, meat processing plants are opening. including a Tyson’s slaughterhouse with more than 1000 workers who have been infected.

The National Pork Board has an interactive map showing the status of pork plants.  It also lists Resources for Pork Packers & Processors.

We will have meat—at higher prices, of course.

But at what cost to workers’ lives?

• No wonder workers are asking for safety measures.
• No wonder workers are going on strike.

Because the amount of information about what’s happening with meat is so overwhelming. I’m going to be dealing with it all this week.

Let’s start with Covid-19 illnesses and deaths of people working in slaughterhouses—workers and USDA inspectors.

How bad is the Covid-19 situation in slaughterhouses and packing plants?

The Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) is Mapping Covid-19 in meat and food processing plants.  As of May 15:

at least 209 meatpacking and processed food plants and 11 farms have confirmed cases of Covid-19, and at least one meatpacking plant and four processed food plants are currently closed. At least 15,744 workers  (14,271 meatpacking workers, 1,058 food processing workers, and 415 farmworkers) have tested positive for Covid-19 and at least 65 workers (59 meatpacking workers and 6 food processing workers) have died.

In Texas, for example, testing is turning up hundreds of cases of Covid-19 among workers in meat packing plants.

It’s not just workers who are getting sick and dying.  USDA inspectors are too.  Food Dive reports that 197 field employees in the Food Safety and Inspection Service ​(FSIS) tested positive for coronavirus, 120 are under quarantine, and three died (as of May 7).

And now a fourth USDA inspector has died.

Politico reported:

many inspectors were expected to find their own protective gear since USDA wasn’t able to secure face masks for all of its workers. In April, USDA said it would give a $50 reimbursement for inspectors to find their own, according to Politico.

Who is to blame?

According to Politico, Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services,

suggested to lawmakers at the end of April that meatpacking employees were more likely to catch the coronavirus based on their social interactions and group living situations than from exposure on the job…But after the story published, spokesperson Michael Caputo said in a statement that “Secretary Azar simply made the point that many public health officials have made: in addition to the meat packing plants themselves, many workers at certain remote and rural meatpacking facilities have living conditions that involve multifamily and congregate living, which have been conducive to rapid spread of the disease.”

Blaming the victims does not explain why inspectors are getting sick.

Of course, conditions at the plants are responsible.  As quoted in the Politico story, 

“America’s meatpacking workers are putting their lives on the line every day to make sure our families have the food they need during this pandemic,” UFCW International Vice President Ademola Oyefeso said in a statement. “Secretary Azar is cowardly pointing the finger at sick workers and peddling the same thinly-veiled racism we have heard from far too many in positions of power.”

Why can’t we get authoritative information about worker illnesses and deaths?

FERN is doing its best to keep track, against all odds.

FERN’s ongoing analysis of Covid-19 cases in the food system has found that more than 14,200 meatpacking plant workers have tested positive for the virus since mid-April. That figure, derived primarily from local news reports and state officials, is likely an undercount given the lack of data available from meatpackers.

Nebraska, for example, won’t allow tracking of cases.

Governor Pete Ricketts said Wednesday that the state won’t be releasing specific numbers of cases at meatpacking plants, saying it’s a matter of privacy.

A Texas plant refused to allow the state to test workers, but then relented under pressure from the press.

State health officials say the JBS Beef plant rejected its efforts to test all employees. The company switched gears Wednesday afternoon after the Tribune reported on the lack of testing at a plant tied to a rapidly growing cluster of coronavirus cases.

Meat plants are a viral epicenter

Along with nursing homes, prisons, and other crowded places, meat packing plants are especially vulnerable, and not just in the U.S.  Slaughterhouses in Germany are also sites of lots of cases, and for the same reasons.

Tomorrow: The order to keep plants open.