Looks like somebody wants Mexican cattle.

[Sandhusker]

MRJ, "They do seem to be taking action to improve that situation........pretty harshly compared to our standards, in fact. "

That's what you said before this latest big melanine in milk deal. Was there a time frame for the improvements to take place?

[burnt]

Why would COOL harm producers like those you mentioned? They are lightyears ahead of the commodity beef producers and have built their own market by marketing a superior product for a discerning consumer.

[mrj]

burnt, I believe that COOL will hurt all producers, first because it will add costs than can't won't be recouped through added real value to the beef.

COOL is a marketing ploy, rather than providing any real increase in food safety and when consumers understand that, I believe they will not be happy. Unhappy consumers won't be inclined to buy the products from people they believe have misled them.

COOL, at the least, has the potential to cause lost sales for producers who sell branded beef, because it uses the law and government regulation to make all the beef labeled as USA produced to appear to be on a par, in consumers eyes, with the privately sold or branded beef products.

That is due to the fact R-CALF, spokesmen using their name, and others promoting passage and adoption of COOL have, for years been telling consumers that US produced beef is tops in safety, class, and quality and that imported beef is "crap".

mrj

[RobertMac]

[mrj]

RobertMac, do you honestly believe individual ranchers and small packing plants can 'slow process' enough beef to serve the needs of the US population, let alone the number of consumers worldwide that we now serve???

BTW, you sound as though you had never before heard the premise that food handlers might be the source of e coli spread to beef!!!!!

I've certainly stated many times on this site that the possibility should be investigated....and I've stated that when NCBA or CBB people tried to get it done.....the unions went ballistic.....and it wasn't done.

How much more do you think the majority of consumers are willing to pay for the 'slowly processed' beef? Will it be enough to pay the unskilled, uneducated, lowest paid workers a "living wage" (whatever that truly is!) AND pay the producers a "living wage" for their time, above their costs? And pay all the 'regulators' for 'equal' regulation of all packing plants, no matter how small?

Please share your plan with us. You may also need to figure out how to make it 'equal' for those of us in arid/frigid regions to raise cattle when some of you live in wonderfully green/moderate climates.

Not that I'm interested in trading places with anyone living in more populous places!!! Just think we need to be careful when wishing for "equality" in all things.

mrj

[Ben Roberts]

[Ben H]

[RobertMac]

[Oldtimer]

It has been shown and now is pretty apparent to the country- that if the Corporate world is left to police themselves they don't do it- be it Packers, Banking, Insurance, Importing, whatever--with the current loss of moral and ethical values in the business world and the attitude they can use any loophole, grey area, as long as it makes a fast buck and they can keep themselves out of jail...
And management cares less anymore-even if some recall or ban bankrupts the country- as they all have their multimillion dollar golden parachutes wrote in before they walk into the offices...

Industry was given several years to self police- they failed- now its time for change....

[PORKER]

Where'd the beef come from? Gaps cloud new food-labeling law
By SUSAN SALISBURY

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, October 03, 2008

Now coming to a supermarket near you: beef from the United States, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand and Uruguay.

All in the same pound of hamburger.

What's COOL, what's not

As of Sept. 30, the Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL, law requires fresh meat, poultry, fish, fruits, vegetables and certain nuts to bear a label stating the product's country of origin. But anything processed, including items that are cooked, salted or dried, are exempt. Below, a guide to the COOL and un-COOL.

COOL

Meat sold in supermarkets.

Fish sold in supermarkets*

Raw peanuts

Pork chops

Bagged lettuce

Sliced cantaloupe

Fresh salmon

Fresh shrimp


NOT COOL

Meat sold in butcher shops.

Fish sold in fish markets

Peanut butter

Roasted peanuts

Bacon

Trail mix

Bagged mixed salad greens

Smoked salmon

Cooked shrimp


*Fish sold in supermarkets has been required to be labeled since 2005.


Source: Consumers Union, Yonkers, N.Y.

New federal rules debuted this week mandating that food labels reflect where the food originated. Its intent is to let consumers know where their food came from. But gaps in the legislation, known as country-of-origin labeling or COOL, can still leave shoppers in the dark.

For instance, carrots have to be labeled. Frozen carrots and peas don't. Frozen french fries have to be labeled. Frozen seasoned french fries don't.

And that New York strip steak in the supermarket case? A recent trip to Publix found one labeled "Product of U.S., Mexico, Canada."

The multiple-country problem with beef is the strangest and most contentious quirk to come out of COOL, held up for six years by food and meat industry groups that protested it would be too difficult and expensive to implement. Processed foods are still exempt. That includes bagged salads, mixed frozen vegetables and 95 percent of peanuts, pecans and macadamia nuts - roasting is considered a form of processing.

Now, just days after the rule took effect, a group of 31 senators has asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schaefer to put more restrictive meat-labeling rules in place. And Senate bills were introduced this week seeking to extend the mandatory labeling to dairy products and pharmaceuticals.

Despite the law's many loopholes, "It is a good first step," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington.

"Consumers simply have a right to know where their food comes from," said Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist with New York-based Consumers Union. "An overwhelming majority, 92 percent of Americans, want to know," Rangan said of a recent survey.

For that reason, the federal law hits home with Linda Rex, 63, a seasonal Boynton Beach resident and grandmother of 17. "I think it's wonderful, particularly because we should be eating more local. When they ship stuff from far away, it doesn't have any nutrients left anyway," Rex said. "If it doesn't come from where I am now, I don't really want it."

In fact, concerns about food imports from China and Canada helped move COOL along.

"It does provide a certain safety measure for consumers to make informed decisions," Rangan said, citing recent incidents involving contaminated seafood from China, and Mexican jalapeños linked to salmonella. "It can also help consumers verify regional authenticity of a product, such as Parmesan cheese or Parma ham."

There's definitely an "ewww" factor for discovering a pound of ground beef could be from cows from different countries that wound up at the same slaughterhouse. But Mark Dopp, senior vice president for regulatory affairs at the American Meat Institute in Washington, said the meatpacking industry needs some flexibility.

Meatpacking plants are huge, handling herds of cattle from multiple nations. "The cost of segregating cattle at the plant, keeping carcasses separate and keeping meat products separated is extremely burdensome." (NOT)

Without keeping carcasses separate, said Denver-based National Farmers Union president Tom Buis, 85 percent of beef "muscle cuts" such as steaks, will carry a "Canada, Mexico, USA label" as meatpackers try to cover all possibilities.

That's a problem for Bill Bullard, CEO of cattle producers group R-CALF in Billings, Mont. The multiple-country label should never be allowed for products that are exclusively of U.S. origin, he said. Bullard contends that meatpackers want to use that label to mask the fact that they are buying cheaper imported animals and slaughtering them in the United States.

Labeling is much more straightforward for most other covered commodities. Foods processed and packaged in other countries already are required to be labeled under tariff laws dating back to the 1930s.

And for Floridians, who have had the benefits of a fresh-produce-only labeling law since 1979, country-of-origin designations on fruits and vegetables are nothing new. But now frozen fruits and vegetables, chicken, pork, lamb, goat, peanuts, ginseng, pecans and macadamia nuts will be covered.

Bob Graham, who signed the Florida law as governor in 1979, and worked on COOL during his time in the U.S. Senate, said the federal rule "is long delayed. Many of the arguments that were made against the federal law, that it would cause sharp price increases in vegetables in stores, and would be too cumbersome for the stores to manage, were all proven to be false by the Florida experience. That was a powerful factor in getting the federal law changed."

J. Luis Rodriguez, a trade adviser with Florida Farmers Inc. in Lake Worth and a former vegetable grower who helped author the Florida law, said pressure from retailers almost resulted in a voluntary COOL law, which Rodriguez contends would have worked about as well as a voluntary speed limit.

It took a national coalition, Americans for Country of Origin Labeling, that included the National Farmers Union, Consumers Union and more than 100 other groups, to push COOL into law, Rodriquez said.

Hugh MacMillan, a Tallahassee lobbyist who worked with Rodriguez on the Florida law, said he's glad to see federal COOL get its day in the sun. "It has a certain genius. It brings the consumers into the equation

[Ben H]

So, the real problem is that this is inconvenient for the packers, as efficient as they may be, they're going to have to learn that being so big is going to have to come with some inconveniences. Being smaller has to have at least some advantages, like not mixing ground beef from hundreds of animals and then putting them into thousands of packages to ship all over the country.

[Ben Roberts]

[quote="Ben H
Some of these mobile abbatoirs have been doing well, Joel Huesby in Wala Wala, WA got his built and is USDA inspected. He can kill 30 beeves in a day, on the farm, under USDA inspection. [/quote]

Ben H, who told you this?