News Alert

Food & Water Watch today sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture objecting to a recent decision by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to allow the Swift plant in Grand Island, Nebraska to sell beef that clearly should have been rejected for human consumption. The company doused 493 beef carcasses with the filth previously collected in the drains on its kill floor – which certainly would have included fecal material, pus from abscesses, cleaning chemicals, dirt that entered the plant on workers’ shoes, and many other substances that should not come in contact with human food. FSIS should have followed its own regulations which specifically require that all product adulterated with polluted water be condemned. Instead, FSIS allowed Swift to “rework” the product and sell it with the USDA seal of inspection.

Please click here to download the full letter or here to read it online.

• Read the Dow Jones Newswire story
• For more information, you can check out our meat inspection page or explore our other food campaigns.
  
• You could also watch a fun animation about meat packing plants from our friends at The Meatrix.