Canada’s red meat industry has overwhelmingly adopted new food safety technology and the result is a safer food supply and a more credible industry, government and industry representatives said last week.
“Canadian cattle and hog producers and red meat packers-processors are acting aggressively to assure the integrity of meat products,” Canadian Meat Council general manager Bob Weaver told the council annual meeting Feb. 5.
“Those actions in process in the three sectors of our industry mesh together to strengthen the whole industry by raising the food safety standard.”
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Driving the food safety advance is the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system of monitoring and testing for microbial contamination.
Effective Jan. 25, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency made HACCP a requirement in any meat processing plant employing 10 or more people if the plant is producing product for export out of the province.
Weaver said it means 80 percent of all red meat now slaughtered and processed in Canada is covered by HACCP.
The inspection agency is consulting the industry about whether HACCP should become mandatory in all federally licensed meat plants in January 2001.
AndrŽ Gravel, vice-president of the CFIA, said the federal rules do not apply to plants licensed provincially or by municipalities. These plants are not allowed to sell product outside the province.
He said federal-provincial talks on the national inspection system continue.
Meanwhile, speakers at the meat council meeting stressed the importance the food sector and consumers put on food safety.
Susan MacInnes, director of quality assurance and food safety for A&P Food Stores, said it is the main consumer issue.
She said her store chain buys 99.9 percent of its meat produce from plants federally licensed and using HACCP. And while she said that has produced a safe meat supply, consumers often have a different view.
MacInnes said the majority of E. coli contamination reports in recent months have involved fruits and vegetables and contaminated imported Brussels sprouts.
Yet a survey revealed a different story. Consumers said red meat is the most common source of the disease-causing bacteria.
“Our customer’s perception is our reality,” she said.
Gravel told the conference that most food poisoning is caused by food handling after it leaves the store.
University of Guelph, Ont., assistant professor and food risk communication specialist Doug Powell pounced. One of his main arguments is that if food safety claims are made, the industry must be able to back them up with statistics. On what is that claim based? Powell asked with the smile of one who knew the answer.
“It is based on old data,” Gravel quickly conceded. Health Canada has not provided new data in years. “But it is a safe assumption that most food poisoning happens because of home preparation,” he insisted.
Powell said assumptions are not enough. Food safety skeptics must be shown the scientific or statistical proof.
