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Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

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81–90 of 112 posts

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#81
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This discussion is about industrial food processors making food products at-scale in factories. > you implying that Frank the Farmer down the road making baloney in a bathtub The farmers almost never do the processing, Certainly none of the farms I have seen do. But that's a nice misdirection and mental picture you tried to paint there. Let me try doing the same thing: Do you think the Thiel and Vc funds slopping bul…

The farmers almost never do the processing, Certainly none of the farms I have seen do. Which defeats the point of buying the foods at issue from a farmer, unless you are suggesting that everyone buy the equipment they need to make deli meat at home from the quarter-cow they just purchased. Both the animals and the processing are done with as many corners cut as they can get away with because something thats simply n…

> Which defeats the point of buying the foods at issue from a farmer, unless you are suggesting that everyone buy the equipment they need to make deli meat at home from the quarter-cow they just purchased.

Most farmers have a butcher that they will bring the animal to so you don't need to handle it. I have never had to process any animals myself or even bring them to a butcher. Considering your whole post is based off that faulty assumption I'll end replying to you directly there.

This was already mentioned in the first post. Why are these commenters building these straw men and seemingly being purposely obtuse? This whole comment chain is so weird and kind of surreal. People who have zero idea of what local agriculture actually looks like in practice have such strong opinions on it and are willing to talk so condescendingly to those of us that actually care about how food is made.

One of the site rules is 'assume good faith' but we have one comment talking about bathtub bologna and another implying that anyone who buys meat outside of a grocery store needs to process the animal themselves.

Despite the propaganda portraying local agriculture as some hick operation the reality is it's far safer and more modern than industrial ag. My local food co-op has a website with an order form that delivers fresh food (dairy, produce, and meat, including deli meat!) In an insulated refrigerated cooler to my door.

And because apparently it needs repeating for some reason: no you don't need to process the animals yourself. Simply pick the meat you want, just like how you do it now.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#82
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup cured deli meats sounds like a recipe for distributed delivery of salmonella.

ah I remember the good ol’ days when you could pitch a VC on “Uber but for salmonella” and easily secure your Series A

Try with...salmonella.ai

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#83

I do not suppose a regular person can get access to all of the failed food safety audits in the past few years? Also, why is there not a remediation date by which there will be a follow-up assessment?

Many records can be accessed at https://www.fsis.usda.gov/about-fsis/freedom-information-act... and if for some reason one is not available a FOIA request can be submitted fairly simply

Eugh pdfs. Even worse, the first one I tried was a scanned PDF, though they had at least run it through OCR.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#84
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you distinguish these behaviors?

There are a lot of regulations. They were inspected. They failed inspections. Then the inspectors did nothing. All the additional regulations can be added that we want, but if the inspectors don't close the plant, they are meaningless.

Agreed. I’m for fewer regulations, but enforced.

In this case, we have several deaths. Perhaps the head of the factory and the inspectors that failed to keep the plant safe should be tried for third degree murder or something.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#86

I feel certain that the entire industry is probably at least this bad. It’s not a question of if, but when.

It's a Jungle out there...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle>

(Meant to promote awareness of worker safety rather than food hygiene. "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach" -- Sinclair. Still, its impact and legacy are profound.)

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#87
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasnt unregulated though. We have this thing called the FDA. Problem solved right?

When regulators can't shut a plant down for a violation like this, it's not actually regulated. People watch historic documentaries (like HBO's Chernobyl /s) and ooh and aah about how stupid the Soviet safety and bureaucratic culture was, without a shred of self-reflection about how our systems also make ruinous outcomes inevitable.

Underregulated and unregulated are different things.

Saying that it's unregulated makes the solution appear simple, just add regulation. Recognizing that it is already ineffectively regulated implies that regulation doesn't have to just be present, it has to be good.

But then again it's a lot harder to come up with a solution that works past spherical cows in a vacuum so let's just call it unregulated.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#88
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought Boars Head _was_ the premium brand.

Pretty scary how many people get fooled by "premium" branding. Think about what made you think that Boars Head was "premium". Was there any evidence that their meats were higher than average quality, that didn't ultimately come from the company itself? Or was it all their product positioning, price, what stores they were found in and so on (in other words, Marketing).

I honestly thought Boars Head tasted better and offered more variety than other brands, but then again I never did a blind taste test. It could have all been affected by their marketing. They do a LOT to separate their products from other deli meat - even down to having separate displays and even cooler units.

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this, and linked articles on New York Times, the suggestion is laxed food safety standards are endemic across the entire processed food industry.

From 2009: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html Slaughterhouses not testing their products for E coli, because it's too expensive. Slaughterhouses blacklisting customers who do their own testing. USDA has no effective regulatory powers to change that.

Single-page archive: https://archive.is/OKqta>

Re: Boar's Head plant posed an 'imminent threat' years before listeria outbreak

#90
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always just go to a butcher.

In order to do so, one has to have a local butcher who is still in operation. For many, any such local butchers were driven out of business years ago by the lower cost options in the supermarkets produced by the bulk producers, so the option to "just go to a butcher" is no longer available, at any cost.

Butchers are found throughout much of the US, in at least in urban/suburban areas. If your only local food option is WalMart or Dollar Store, you might have a long trip before you, though with a chest freezer, and an icebox and dry ice for the trip itself, meat tends to freeze and preserve well.
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