BPI closing 3 plants, blaming 'pink slime' uproar

[UpInArms]

Source: Associated Press

Beef Products Inc. will close processing plants in three states this month because of the controversy surrounding its meat product that critics have dubbed "pink slime," a company official said Monday.

About 650 jobs will be lost when the plants are closed in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo Iowa, company spokesman Rich Jochum said. The closures will take effect May 25.

A plant in South Sioux City, Neb., will remain open but run at reduced capacity.

The South Dakota-based company blamed the closures on what it said were unfounded attacks over its lean, finely textured beef. During its processing, bits of beef are heated and treated with a small amount of ammonia to kill bacteria. The filler has been used for years and meets federal food safety standards.

But the company suspended operations in March at the three plants. BPI has declined to discuss financial details, but has said it took a "substantial" hit after social media exploded with worry over the product and an online petition seeking its ouster from schools drew hundreds of thousands of supporters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided that school districts may stop using it, and some retail chains have pulled products containing it from their shelves.

Read more: http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=68985755806581

[MADem]

1. They should just reconfigure and make pet food, instead.

Add a canning element. How hard is it to mix in a few vitamins into that pink shit, add the odd minced carrots and shredded green beans, and call it All Beef dog food?

It would probably be as good as the horsemeat most dogs eat from a can. They could probably do very well per unit, too, if they'd just get creative and stop complaining that people don't like eating that shit, and who can blame them?

[L0oniX]

2. So the penalty for objecting to bull shit for food is that we lose jobs. Nice!

I guess Homeland Security will be keeping an eye on social media terrorists to stop the loss of jobs now.

[w4rma]

14. Theoretically jobs will be created elsewhere to make the food that will replace

this crap.

[kurtzapril4]

3. What I want to know

Is if the level of ammonium is dangerous. Ammonium, after all, is a natural product that's all around us all the time. It's in the air we breathe.

It was an unappetising looking product, for sure...but was it really dangerous? Apparently it's been being used for a long time.

I just want to know the facts. Some science. I want to know if this was a legitimate health issue...or it just had a huge "ick" factor.

[peacebird]

5. My objection is the lack of transparency. They do not label it and let consumers decide.

I have opted out of the commercial meat industry for the most part. I get my beef from a friend who lives a mile away, that is also where i get pork.
We are going in together to raise chickens this summer. I rarely buy meat at the store, but when i do it is polyface....

[PSPS]

6. Most people like to know what they're eating

Eating pet food isn't "dangerous" either. Does that mean people should just shut up and eat pet food because it "isn't dangerous?"

Why do you think there's such a hue and cry over food labeling? For example, we aren't allowed to know what contains GM products or BGH. Why? You know why. People, when given a choice, will prefer to buy things without them. So, in its infinite wisdom (and having been captured by the industries they're supposed to regulate,) our regulatory agencies fall right in line with their briber's desires which is to hide the truth from the buying public, lest their CEO bonuses, yachts, hookers, boob job for the trophy 18-year-old wife, and the requisite laundering of a portion back to lawmakers as bribes be threatened.

[Bonhomme Richard]

4. I always figured crap like that was in fast food burgers and stuff like that.....

and I was cool with it. If I wanted a fast food burger then that was the deal.
What pisses me off is that the supermarkets were selling me ground beef with that crap in it and they did it to make a few bucks. It's as simple as that. To try and say they were saving me money is bullshit. What they were doing was stretching a pound of ground beef with fillers that they paid less for.
They were less than honest so I don't have any sympathy for the owners...the workers, yes, I feel bad for.

[Red Mountain]

8. I agree

I take my chances when I want to. Or have to.

I think my food should be appropriately labeled.

[Mopar151]

10. The big fast food chains are fussy about their products

Particularly McDonalds, who control their whole supply chain on many products. The supermarkets were the biggest users, especially because it "tested" lean. I did'nt know what the stuff was, but I'd been avoiding it for years, in favor of the burger from small local stores who grind their own. My issues had less to do with taste than texture, and also water content. I NEVER buy "chubs"
of burger from the Big Box supermarkets - that stuff is ground in the slaughterhouse, (less than sanitary conditions) and occasionally triggers an E-coli recall.

[PSPS]

7. Nice snow job, AP: "'pink slime' uproar" should read "'pink slime' subterfuge"

As usual, it's portrayed as the "outrage" being wrong, not the action that caused it. Kind of like blaming the problem of cops murdering BART passengers on all those pesky cell phone cameras and the "uproar" they cause. If people would just learn to mind their own business, hey! There are no problems!

[Rhiannon12866]

11. +1!

Exactly! Very well said.

[Red Mountain]

9. I think there are plenty of Repubicans.....

Who are vaguely horrified by this stuff.

They aren't able to face up to the reality......but they don't want to eat it.

Good stuff, that little bit of realization.

Teachable, even.

[Psephos]

12. Same process is used to make hot dogs, smoked sausage, turkey kielbasa, etc.

Has been for a long time.

Draw your own conclusions.

[JBoy]

16. Yes, I fondly remember my grandmother's sausages

It seeems like only yesterday when she would put meat scraps into a heated centrifuge, extruding the liquid fat and protein paste, and then treating it with ammonia gas to kill the bacteria before stuffing the sausage casings.

Good times.

[Rozlee]

17. Hell, I'm Hispanic; you don't want to know what I eat.

Tripas or menudo, anyone?

[freshwest]

13. Oh, really? Whining about people not buying their crap? Need to go back to production school 101.

Or go and find some other scam to run.

[sendero]

15. How can this be Late Breaking News?

This happened weeks ago.