Beef plant closure | ‘Bracketing’ procedures to take additional meat out of use were not followed when E. coli was found
The XL Foods plant at the centre of a massive beef recall was not following its own food safety plan, said Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials.
Investigations showed the company’s Brooks, Alta., plant had a hazard analysis critical control points plan in place, but didn’t follow it, said Dr. Harpreet Kochhar, executive director of CFIA’s western operations.
“When we looked into it in depth we found that there was an existing plan, but the company was not following that plan accordingly. So that was when we actually came up with the corrective action requests and so on,” said Kochhar, during a media briefing Oct. 5.
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The investigation also showed that the company was not following its own “bracketing” procedure. As part of food safety plans, when E. coli is found, the meat before and after the positive discovery, must be removed and cooked or rendered.
“When we went back to the in-depth analysis and review, we found the bracketing was not done properly, and that led us to believe that food may be unsafe,” he said.
Kochhar said the plant will not reopen until all corrective actions and plans are in place and the CFIA believes the beef from the plant is safe.
“At this point there is no timeline and it is up to the company to prove to us that they are ready for operations.”
In an Oct. 4 news release, XL Foods said it accepts responsibility for the series of food safety failures in its southern Alberta processing plant that resulted in the largest beef recall in Canadian history.
XL is owned by Nilsson Brothers Inc., headed by Brian and Lee Nilsson, who share the title of chief executive officer. Neither has been available to comment on the situation.
“We believed XL Foods was a leader in the beef processing industry with our food safety protocols, but we have now learned it was not enough. We take full responsibility for our plant operations and the food it produces, which is consumed by Canadians from coast to coast,” said a company news release.
About 1,800 meat products have been recalled and at least four people have been confirmed sickened with E. coli O157:H7 infection after eating beef traced back to the plant in Brooks.
CFIA temporarily pulled the plant’s licence to operate Sept. 27.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said the plant would not be reopened until he received written confirmation from the president of the CFIA that it is safe to operate.
The government has defended the CFIA and its investigation, saying 46 federal meat inspectors and veterinarians are at the plant.
“There was no single issue that explained this. They found that there was a combination of deficiencies that were taken together to produce that,” said Richard Arsenault, head of meat inspection for the CFIA.
“People are criticizing the plant, saying they are not following voluntary guidelines.”
“The irony is the things they were doing, things that were not in the voluntary guidelines, that were more stringent,” said Arsenault.
However, CFIA president George Da Pont said there were specific problems going back to when the meat was processed at the end of August.
“All of this did not become evident until we got all of the documentation from the plant, which we got on Sept. 10 and 11 from a series of batches,” he said.
CFIA repeatedly asked the plant for its paperwork after U.S. inspectors found E. coli in a shipment of trim Sept. 3. The agency said it found similar results around the same time but did not initiate a recall because no meat had reached consumers yet.
“We base our decisions on science and on evidence, and I believe we acted very appropriately based on what we knew at the time,” Da Pont said Oct. 3.
The CFIA review said XL had monitoring procedures in place, but it did not respond or strengthen its processes when a spike in the incidence of E. coli data was found.
In addition to the issues with bracketing, staff did not always follow sampling protocols, which could have resulted in inaccurate test results.
Testing methods used by a private laboratory were effective and accurate, said the CFIA.
XL has promised to add more computerized monitoring and remote video auditing of procedures in the plant.
It is also rewriting its training programs for staff and will add more quality control personnel to monitor activities.
It also plans to wash sides of beef with high pressure, hot water sanitizers set at 85 C to eliminate E. coli contamination.
However, food microbiologist Keith Warriner of the University of Guelph in Ontario said the CFIA should have acted more quickly after two separate agencies simultaneously discovered E. coli contamination.
“What is the most disappointing aspect of this was that the U.S. found it first on Sept. 3 and stopped exports before it was done here,” said Warriner.
“They should have realized if you got two positives like that, it is unusual.”
Plants tend to use polymerase chain reaction tests, which give results within 24 hours. However, confirmation tests are then needed for positive results and that requires growing a culture, which may take a week.
“The trouble is the PCR test can give you false positives,” Warriner said.
This food recall is unique because of the number of factors that came together at once, said consultant Glenn Brand.
It is the first time ground beef and whole muscle products have been recalled and illnesses linked to whole muscle.
“That is fundamentally different from anything we have seen in Canada,” he said.
“Consumers for the most part are accustomed to cooking ground beef to 160 degrees or well done. They are not accustomed to having to do that on steak,” he said.
