Beef investigation focused on animal handling, not food safety

JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT
        Issued by:
Representative Tom McCall, Chairman
House Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee
Senator John Bulloch, Chairman
Senate Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee
Tommy Irvin, Commissioner of Agriculture
Jim Collins, Executive Vice President, Georgia Cattlemen’s Association
Gary Black, President, Georgia Agribusiness Council
Farrah Newberry, Executive Director, Georgia Milk Producers Inc.
Zippy Duvall, President, Georgia Farm Bureau

The USDA administrative hold on Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company products is due to regulatory requirements and violation of contractual obligations, not for food safety reasons. USDA has stated there is no evidence that downer cattle entered the food supply.

Georgia parents can feel confident in the safety of beef produced for the school lunch program because of the strict safety standards established by USDA. School lunch contract requirements include finished product sampling to ensure ground beef tests negative for E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. In addition, there are multiple safeguards in place to make sure BSE is not an issue in this country. Packing plants also must abide by Hazard Analyses Critical Control Point (HACCP) certification requirements that ensure food safety.

The treatment of cattle depicted in a video released by the Humane Society of the United States in no way represents the types of treatment cattle receive on a daily basis. We simply do not condone the actions in this video. We work hard every day to give animals the proper care and handling they deserve and expect proper treatment to continue after they leave our farms and ranches.

Georgia’s beef producing families have, for generations, committed themselves to sound animal welfare because they know healthy animals produce healthful food. Good animal care is not only the right thing to do, it also is good business. For more information, please visit www.BeefFromPastureToPlate.org.

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