Finely textured beef | Last year’s controversy over beef product prompts company to cater to consumer concerns
CHICAGO, Ill. (Reuters) — Cargill says it will begin labelling when its finely textured beef is used in the making of U.S. ground beef products.
The move comes as consumers increasingly demand more transparency in how agribusiness companies make food and how these products are disclosed on the packaging.
The debate over food labelling has roiled for months since last year’s public and media furor over a rival beef product, which critics had dubbed “pink slime.” More recently, Washington state has debated requiring labelling of genetically modified food.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Cargill’s finely textured beef is a processed meat product made from chunks of beef, including trimmings, and exposed to citric acid to kill E. coli and other dangerous contaminants. The product, which Cargill has made since 1993, is used to produce higher -volume, less fatty ground beef.
Cargill said the new ground beef packaging, slated to debut early next year, came about after it surveyed more than 3,000 consumers over the past 18 months about their views on ground beef and how it is made.
The survey arose after last year’s intense media coverage of Beef Products Inc., which makes a similar product called lean finely textured beef. BPI relies on a different technology than Cargill and uses ammonium hydroxide, rather than citric acid, as a processing agent to kill potential pathogens.
Cargill was able to escape some of the social media furor over “pink slime” because it uses citric acid, which the public generally perceived at the time as more palatable than the ammonium hydroxide used by BPI.
BPI’s business plummeted in the wake of the media coverage and subsequent public outcry over the product in the spring and early summer of 2012. The company shuttered three plants and laid off hundreds of employees.
Cargill said it saw demand for its “finely textured beef” drop by 80 percent during that period. Though the business is slowly recovering, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not require such labelling, Cargill said consumers had made clear they wanted to know when such products were included in their ground beef.
“We’ve listened to the public, as well as our customers, and that is why today we are declaring our commitment to labelling finely textured beef,” said Cargill Beef president John Keating.
Cargill’s new packaging will state that a product contains finely textured beef on boxes of ground beef that retailers repackage for sale to the public, company officials said.
By next year’s grilling season, Cargill plans to have the same language printed on its branded packages of ground beef that are sold directly to consumers.
