PHOENIX, Ariz. – New BSE rules under the United States Meat Inspection Act carry serious penalties if processors do not comply.
Getting up to speed in the 3,000 federally inspected plants in the U.S. is an ongoing challenge. Training is under way to teach meat workers how to determine cattle age by checking teeth, properly remove specified risk material and implement other new hygiene regulations.
However, it is important the rules do not become cumbersome, said Gary Weber of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
“We want to be very careful with regard to additional regulation to industry and mitigating risk and protecting consumer confidence,” said Weber, NCBA director of regulatory affairs.
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“We don’t want to get to the point where we start adding tests that don’t raise our confidence but get into some serious costs very quickly,” he told the NCBA feeder council meeting Jan. 29.
He added the country has to find ways to dispose of mature animals in an environmentally proper manner. These plans could apply whether there is a disease outbreak or weather calamity where thousands die suddenly.
At the processor level, the new regulations are part of staff training programs and revised hazard analysis critical control points manuals.
However, one packer argued BSE is less of a food safety issue than some other animal diseases.
“This is an issue that needs to be taken care of. It does not need all of our time and all of our efforts,” said Rod Bowling, vice-president of food safety and quality assurance at Packerland Inc., which owns an Arizona plant called Sunland Beef.
Segregating animals over 30 months of age has not been that disruptive. His plant relies on dentition to determine age and may start checking the teeth on live animals for easier sorting.
Sunland kills fed cattle, cows and bulls. The older animals are handled at the end of the day.
“Long term, this is going to be good for the cattle industry. It will get all those last-calf heifers. They are finally going to be on the other side of the fence. This will clean up the trash kind of cattle that have created some quality problems that were blamed on the good cattle, ” Bowling said.
In time the company may have a disposal problem for meat and bone meal derived from the risk materials. It could be burned for fuel.
“If you don’t take all of the tallow out of it, it burns cleaner than coal,” he said.
A greater concern is lost value for products that typically went to foreign markets. Bowling’s plant started giving away liver to employees because no one would buy it.
Marcine Moldenhauer, quality co-ordinator for Excel Foods, said the biggest challenge has been training staff on the new regulations. Some plants have as many as 3,000 employees.
Excel, the meat division of Cargill Inc., has hired more people to inspect teeth and has altered some processing lines to handle the older cattle.
Some controversy continues over dentition. Some breeds get their permanent teeth sooner than others and end up being shunted aside as lower value, older animals.
“We have decided to err on the side of caution,” said Garry McKee from the food safety and inspection service.
