USDA Announces Plan
to List Retail Stores Receiving Recalled Meat and Poultry Products; AMI Voices
Opposition, Cites Public Confusion
American Meat Institute
Friday, July 11, 2008
USDA will list retail stores receiving meat and poultry products involved in Class I recalls, beginning next month, Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer announced today. The rule will become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, which will occur next week.
AMI released a statement expressing strong opposition to the move, saying that the Institute supports providing information that consumers will find useful in determining whether they have a recalled product. “The most accurate way to make this determination is to rely upon product identifiers like code dates, plant numbers and brands announced by recalling companies,” said Mark Dopp, AMI’s senior vice president, regulatory affairs and general counsel.
Dopp stated that “although this rule seems consumer-friendly on its face, it has the potential to mislead and confuse consumers.” He explained that during recalls, product distribution information can expand over time. “A meat company may have sold a product to ten distributors, and each of those distributors may have sold some of the product to ten brokers and each of those brokers may have sold products to 20 retail stores,” he noted. “This complex shipping information is compiled and updated over time. It is not typically available in a complete form when a recall is announced,” he said.
The announced rule is flawed, Dopp stated, because “if a consumer sees an early version of a list of businesses that received recalled product, that consumer may conclude that he could not have purchased the product,” he explained. “Three days later, the consumer’s local grocery store may appear on the list, but the consumer is unlikely to check the list again and may consume recalled products,” he added.
For a link to the USDA press release, click here: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2008/07/0183.xml
meatami.com
USDA Will Release A List Of Stores Selling Contaminated Meat
By Diane Anderson
eNews 2.0
16:38, July 14th 2008
The United States Department of Agriculture will change its
strategy and start identifying merchants who have been delivered recalled meat.
This measure will only be applied in situations that are most likely to
jeopardize consumers’ health.
Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said shoppers would be
given the information only in Class I recalls, those of "most serious
concern to public health." The commandment will go into operation in
August, 30 days after being published in the Federal Register.
"People want to know if they need to be on the lookout
for recalled meat and poultry from their local stores," declared Schafer.
Making an inventory of the name of the stores "will improve public health
protection by better informing consumers." USDA's Food Safety Inspection
Service will post the list of retail outlets on its Web site.
The rule’s purpose is definitely advantageous for shoppers,
facilitating them to decide if their local store may be putting up for sale
meat that's been recalled for possible contamination, allowing them to ensure
they're not purchasing any of it.
The USDA was blamed the current year because it rejected the
proposal to give the names of the stores and schools that took delivery of beef
recalled by Westland/Hallmark Meat. The recall, which engaged 143 million
pounds, was the major in
Food manufacturers are worried by the fact that linking
vendors to tainted meat could have negative effects on the reputation of
outlets that are putting on the market safe products.
enews20.com