Meat & Poultry

Eleven to one—those were the odds the beef industry was up against for two decades. “We got $10 in new spending over that 20 years, meanwhile our pork and poultry competitors got $110,” said Nevil Speer, an animal scientist at Western Kentucky University. “You can’t grow an industry without new revenue coming in, and we basically worked in a stagnant industry for 20 years.” Speer presented as part of the Harlan Ritchie Beef Symposium during Midwest American Society of Animal Science meetings in Des Moines, Iowa in March.

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“Rigorous food safety standards are applied to all chicken produced in the United States, and all chicken products must meet or exceed these safety standards set forth by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in order to reach consumers,” said Ashley Peterson, Ph.D., vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at the National Chicken Council. …

The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) is excited to announce that, Dr. Randy Huffman from Maple Leaf Foods; Janet Riley from American Meat Institute and Dr. Barbara Masters from Olsson, Frank, Weeda, Terman, and Matz Law Firm, will be the speakers in the AMSA 66th Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) Food Safety Symposium sponsored by Purac, on Monday, June 17. …

Meatpackers could hire employees through an agricultural guest worker program for the first time under a visa program proposed by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee chairman on Friday. …

The National Turkey Federation (NTF) strongly disputes the misleading findings of a Consumer Reports article about ground turkey, which makes a number of alarming claims based on an extremely small sampling of ground turkey products. …