Tag Archives: pink slime

Where’s the fun in that? BPI settles with ABC in pink slime defamation case

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There’s no settlement details; both sides claim victory; lawyers get rich – pink slime and media are both disappointing.

4 T

BPI said: “We are extraordinarily pleased to have reached a settlement of our lawsuit against ABC and Jim Avila. While this has not been an easy road to travel, it was necessary to begin rectifying the harm we suffered as a result of what we believed to be biased and baseless reporting in 2012. Through this process, we have again established what we all know to be true about Lean Finely Textured Beef: it is beef, and is safe, wholesome, and nutritious. This agreement provides us with a strong foundation on which to grow the business, while allowing us to remain focused on achieving the vision of the Roth and BPI family.”  

ABC said, “ABC has reached an amicable resolution of its dispute with the makers of ‘lean finely textured beef.’ Throughout this case, we have maintained that our reports accurately presented the facts and views of knowledgeable people about this product. Although we have concluded that continued litigation of this case is not in the Company’s interests, we remain committed to the vigorous pursuit of truth and the consumer’s right to know about the products they purchase.”

This after three weeks of jury trial and testimony in a courtroom in South Dakota.

What can be learned?

Not much that isn’t already known.

People want to know about their food. Where it was grown, how, what’s been added and if it’s safe.

The N.Y. Times, as usual, gets that little bit right in a commentary in 2012, but wrongly thinks right-to-know is something new, that media amplification is something new because of shiny new toys, and offers no practical suggestions on what to do.

The term pink slime was coined in 2002 in an internal e-mail by a scientist at the Agriculture Department who felt it was not really ground beef. The term was first publicly reported in The Times in late 2009.

In April 2011, celebtard chef Jamie Oliver helped create a more publicly available pink slime yuck factor and by the end of 2011, McDonald’s and others had stopped using pink slime.

On March 7, 2012, ABC News recycled these bits, along with some interviews with two of the original USDA opponents of the process (primarily because it was a form of fraud, and not really just beef).

Industry and others responded the next day, and although the story had been around for several years, the response drove the pink slime story to gather media momentum – a story with legs.

BPI said pink slime was meat so consumers didn’t need to be informed, and everything was a gross misunderstanding. BPI blamed media and vowed to educate public. Others said “it’s pink so it’s meat” and that the language of pink slime was derogatory and needed to be changed. USDA said it was safe for schools but quickly decided that schools would be able to choose whatever beef they wanted, pushing decision-making in the absence of data or labels to the local PTA. An on-line petition was launched.

Sensing the media taint, additional retailers rushed to proclaim themselves free of the pink stuff.

BPI took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, the favored reading choice for pink slime aficionados, and four mid-west governors banded together to repeat the same erroneous messages during a media-show-and-tell at a BPI plant. Because political endorsements rarely work, and the story had spread to the key demographic of burger eaters, others sensed opportunity in the trashing of BPI. Wendy’s, Whole Foods, Costco, A&P, Publix and others launched their own media campaigns proclaiming they’ve never used the stuff and never would.

Guess they didn’t get their dude-it’s-beef T-shirts.

These well-intentioned messages only made things worse for the beef producers and processors they were intended to protect.

Here’s what can be learned for the next pink slime. And there will be lots more.

Lessons of pink slime

  • don’t fudge facts (not really 100% beef?)
  • facts are never enough, although facts are the underpinnings of journalism, ABC
  • changing the language is bad strategy (been tried with rBST, genetically engineered foods, doesn’t work)
  • telling people they need to be educated is arrogant, invalidates and trivializes people’s thoughts
  • don’t blame media for lousy communications
  • any farm, processor, retailer or restaurant can be held accountable for food production – and increasingly so with smartphones, facebook and new toys
  • real or just an accusation, consumers will rightly react based on the information available
  • amplification of messages through media is nothing new, especially if those messages support a pre-existing world-view
  • food is political but should be informed by data
  • data should be public
  • paucity of data about pink slime that is publicly available make statements like it’s safe, or it’s gross, difficult to quantify
  • relying on government validation builds suspicion rather than trust; if BPI has the safety data, make it public
  • what does right-to-know really mean? Do you want to say no?
  • if so, have public policy on how information is made public and why
  • choice is a fundamental value
  • what’s the best way to enable choice, for those who don’t want to eat pink slime or for those who care more about whether a food will make their kids barf?
  • proactive more than reactive; both are required, but any food provider should proudly proclaim – brag – about everything they do to enhance food safety.
  • perceived food safety is routinely marketed at retail; instead market real food safety so consumers actually have a choice and hold producers and processors – conventional, organic or otherwise – to a standard of honesty.
  • if restaurant inspection results can be displayed on a placard via a QR code read by smartphones when someone goes out for a meal, why not at the grocery store or school lunch?
  • link to web sites detailing how the food was produced, processed and safely handled, or whatever becomes the next theatrical production – or be held hostage

Oprah redux still; BPI sues others for pink slime defamation

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During the April 16, 1996 Oprah Winfrey show, the host stated she would stop eating hamburgers because of fears over BSE or mad cow disease and that she was shocked after a guest said meat and bone meal made from cattle was routinely fed to other cattle to boost their meat and milk production.

pink.slime_.daily_.show_-300x165The camera showed members of the studio audience gasping in surprise as vegetarian activist Howard Lyman explained how cattle parts and downer cattle (downer is the generic term used to describe cattle who can simply no longer stand) were rendered and fed to other cattle.

News of the popular show’s content swept through the cattle futures markets, contributing to major declines in beef contracts as traders feared it would turn Americans away from beef. Yet, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its ban on ruminant protein in ruminant feed, the move was widely praised as prudent given the severity of the consequences should BSE be discovered in North America.

Even the U.S. rendering industry, which in the early days of public attention after the March 20, 1996 announcement linking BSE to human deaths in the U.K. argued that negative public perception of the industry was simply a function of inflammatory language (one industry official, during a panel discussion in July 1996, said that part of the problem was that the word downer was a negative term; instead, industry was urging producers and others to describe such animals as non-ambulatory), eventually supported the measures, with the U.S. National Renderers Association quoted as saying the ban on mammalian protein in ruminant feed put “a protective blanket around the cattle industry.”

Shortly thereafter, Oprah, along with her production company and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman, were named in a $10.3 million lawsuit brought by Texas cattle ranchers.

Beyond the media circus in Amarillo, Texas, where the savvy Oprah taped her show during the trial in a star-studded appeal to public sentiment, the trial was the first legal test of food defamation laws, then on the books in 13 U.S. states.

Oprah won, not only in court, but in the court of public opinion.

In a if-you-don’t-know-history-you’re failed-to-repeat, Beef Products Inc. has not only filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News seeking $1.2 billion in damages for misleading consumers about lean finely textured beef, more commonly known as pink slime, but has also demanded others turn over all e-mails about pink slime.

As reported by ABC, several food writers, including a New York Times reporter, have been subpoenaed by a meat producer as part of its $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC in regards to the network’s coverage of a beef product dubbed “pink slime” by critics.

hamburger.oprah_.961-300x230The subpoenas were issued to five writers — three reporters for the online Food Safety News, Times reporter Michael Moss and food writer Michele Simon — asking each to supply copies of any communications they had with ABC in 2012.

Beef Products Inc. sued the network in 2012 seeking $1.2 billion in damages for the coverage of the meat product the industry calls “lean, finely textured beef,” which critics dubbed “pink slime.” BPI said ABC’s coverage misled consumers into believing the product was unsafe and led to the closure of three plants and roughly 700 layoffs.

ABC’s attorneys say that in each of its broadcasts about the product, the network stated that the U.S. Department of Agriculture deemed the product safe to eat. They say BPI might not like the phrase pink slime, but like all ground beef, it’s pink and has a slimy texture.

Attorney Bruce Johnson in Seattle is representing the editor of Food Safety News, Dan Flynn, reporter James Andrews, and former reporter Gretchen Goetz. Johnson on Tuesday said the subpoenas were “overreaching” and that the publication would fight the requests.

BPI attorney Erik Connolly said the subpoenas are “appropriate and would be enforced.”

A spokeswoman for the New York Times said Moss’s subpoena had been stayed.

Simon said she has responded to the request, but did not provide any documents because she doesn’t keep emails dating back to 2012.

“BPI’s lawyers are engaging in a fishing expedition by spreading the subpoenas so far to every journalist and food blogger that has ever said anything about pink slime,” Simon said.

The plaintiffs have also sought subpoenas for two food-safety research labs and a blogger who has written about the meat filler.

In addition to ABC, the lawsuit names ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer, correspondents Jim Avila and David Kerley; Gerald Zirnstein, the U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist who named the product pink slime; former federal food scientist Carl Custer; and Kit Foshee, a former BPI quality assurance manager who was interviewed by ABC.

Pink slime saga boosts Australian beef exports

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 Like mad cow disease, although on a much smaller scale, Australian cattle exporters are reaping the benefits of the pink slime controversy in the U.S.

AAP reports beef and veal exports to the U.S. are expected to increase by 28 per cent to 205,000 tonnes in 2011/12, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) said in its June quarter commodities report.

ABARES attributed U.S. demand for imported beef to reduced cattle slaughter and an ongoing fall-out over reports in March that 70 per cent of ground beef sold in American supermarkets contained pink slime – a cheap meat filler treated with an antibacterial agent.

But beef exports to Indonesia are likely to fall by about 27 per cent to 530,000 head during the same period, after footage of cattle being treated inhumanely at local slaughter houses was aired on ABC television.

Public outcry over the footage led to Australian live exports to Indonesia being suspended for a month.

The live trade resumed after stronger auditing requirements were put in place, but exports have struggled to recover, with Indonesia now pushing for self-sufficiency in the beef market.

Another brick in the wall: schools don’t want no pink slime

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AP reports U.S. school districts are turning up their noses at pink slime, the beef product that caused a public uproar earlier this year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the vast majority of states participating in its National School Lunch Program have opted to order ground beef that doesn’t contain the product known as lean finely textured beef.

Only three states – Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota – chose to order beef that may contain the filler.

But as of May 18, the agency says states ordered more than 20 million pounds of ground beef products that don’t contain lean finely textured beef. Orders for beef that may contain the filler came to about 1 million pounds.

Vilsack says industry should learn from pink slime

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The U.S. ag secretary says pink slime is a “lesson” for meat companies about the power of social media.

This is why producers and processors should not tie their brand to government.

Social media allow the amplification of a risk issue to be accelerated, but the underlying faults that created the risk scenario remain the same – whether transmitted through Intertubes, paper or Aristotle’s aether.

Decades of food safety issues have revealed that communication is important, but must be coupled with risk assessment and management; fail at any of these components, and there will be losses.

As reported by Meatingplace.com, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a conference call with the media Thursday that the storm over lean finely textured beef (LFTB) is, “a good wake-up call for food companies generally, that when there is an effort that uses the social media effectively, there has to be a rapid and specific and quick and comprehensive response. Hopefully that is a lesson that all food companies throughout the United States have learned.”

‘What if it weren’t called pink slime?’ Still would’ve been shown the door

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People want to know about their food. Where it was grown, how, what’s been added and if it’s safe.

The N.Y. Times, as usual, gets that little bit right in a commentary yesterday, but wrongly thinks right-to-know is something new, that media amplification is something new because of shiny new toys, and offers no practical suggestions on what to do.

The term pink slime was was coined in 2002 in an internal e-mail by a scientist at the Agriculture Department who felt it was not really ground beef. The term was first publicly reported in The Times in late 2009.

In April 2011, celebtard chef Jamie Oliver helped create a more publicly available pink slime yuck factor and by the end of 2011, McDonald’s and others had stopped using pink slime.

On March 7, 2012, ABC News recycled these bits, along with some interviews with two of the original USDA opponents of the process (primarily because it was a form of fraud, and not really just beef).

Industry and others responded the next day, and although the story had been around for several years, the response drove the pink slime story to gather media momentum – a story with legs.

BPI said pink slime was meat so consumers didn’t need to be informed, and everything was a gross misunderstanding. BPI blamed media and vowed to educate the public. Others said “it’s pink so it’s meat” and that the language of pink slime was derogatory and needed to be changed. USDA said it was safe for schools but quickly decided that schools would be able to choose whatever beef they wanted, pushing decision-making in the absence of data or labels to the local PTA. An on-line petition was launched.

Sensing the media taint, additional retailers rushed to proclaim themselves free of the pink stuff.
BPI took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, the favored reading choice for pink slime aficionados, and four mid-west governors banded together to repeat the same erroneous messages during a media-show-and-tell at a BPI plant. Because political endorsements rarely work, and the story had spread to the key demographic of burger eaters, others sensed opportunity in the trashing of BPI. Wendy’s, Whole Foods, Costco, A&P, Publix and others launched their own media campaigns proclaiming they’ve never used the stuff and never would.

Guess they didn’t get their dude-it’s-beef T-shirts.

These well-intentioned messages only made things worse for the beef producers and processors they were intended to protect.

Here’s what can be learned for the next pink slime. And there will be lots more.
Lessons of pink slime
• don’t fudge facts (is it or is it not 100% beef?)
• facts are never enough
• changing the language is bad strategy (been tried with rBST, genetically engineered foods, doesn’t work)
• telling people they need to be educated is arrogant, invalidates and trivializes people’s thoughts
• don’t blame media for lousy communications
• any farm, processor, retailer or restaurant can be held accountable for food production – and increasingly so with smartphones, facebook and new toys
• real or just an accusation, consumers will rightly react based on the information available
• amplification of messages through media is nothing new, especially if those messages support a pre-existing world-view
• food is political but should be informed by data
• data should be public
• paucity of data about pink slime that is publicly available make statements like it’s safe, or it’s gross, difficult to quantify
• relying on government validation builds suspicion rather than trust; if BPI has the safety data, make it public
• what does right-to-know really mean? Do you want to say no?
• if so, have public policy on how information is made public and why
• choice is a fundamental value
• what’s the best way to enable choice, for those who don’t want to eat pink slime or for those who care more about whether a food will make their kids barf?
• proactive more than reactive; both are required, but any food provider should proudly proclaim – brag – about everything they do to enhance food safety.
• perceived food safety is routinely marketed at retail; instead market real food safety so consumers actually have a choice and hold producers and processors – conventional, organic or otherwise – to a standard of honesty.
• if restaurant inspection results can be displayed on a placard via a QR code read by smartphones when someone goes out for a meal, why not at the grocery store or school lunch?
• link to web sites detailing how the food was produced, processed and safely handled, or whatever becomes the next theatrical production – or be held hostage

Pink slime maker shuts 3 plants

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KCAU-TV reports Beef Products Incorporated will shut down three of the company’s four plants effective May 25, 2012. The plants that will close are located in Amarillo, TX; Garden City, KS; and Waterloo, IA. The meat processor’s plant in South Sioux City, NE will remain open and could even see expanded production in the future.

Back in March, BPI temporarily suspended operations at the plants after a widespread public backlash against their product. BPI produces lean finely textured beef or LFTB, a product dubbed as "pink slime" by many critics. Once the term was used repeatedly on social media outlets and national news broadcasts, the demand for BPI’s product decreased and the meat processor was forced to scale back their operations. At the time, BPI announced that it would pay full salaries for the 650 employees of the 3 affected plants for a period of 60 days.

On Monday, BPI spokesperson Rich Jochum released this statement to Channel 9 Eyewitness News, "While we had hoped to be able to resume operations at those plants, that is not going to be possible in the immediate future and the temporary suspension of operations will in fact result in the elimination of those jobs effective May 25, 2012."

The BPI plant in South Sioux City, NE has remained open, but at reduced capacity. Jochum says, "We intend to continue operations at this location and expand production here as market activity allows."

Pink slime, sushi slime: one sickened 160 people with Salmonella

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Was the pink slime controversy really a “stunning display of social media power,” or just new-fangled risk amplification and a reflection of how bored many are?

The Washington Post, a print media outlet, arrived at the pink slime party yesterday to rehash what’s long ago happened, recycling sound bites in a lousy attempt to offer insight into how public opinion is transformed into beliefs. Worse, the Post provides a compelling reason why newspapers are in decline: no new facts or analysis, nothing new that on-line diggers didn’t discover and display weeks ago.

Social media changes the details, not the basics: one version of ‘ole timey social media was called a lynch mob.

Cue the cute cats video: it will get a lot more hits than pink slime, and way more than sushi slime. But only one, sushi slime, or imported frozen raw Nakaochi Scrape tuna product from a single tuna processing facility in India, has now been linked to 160 confirmed cases of Salmonella Bareilly, up from 141.

Sushi eaters face their own pink slime

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Amy likes the sushi. I can’t stand the stuff.

As part of that Salmonella-in-sushi outbreak that has now caused 116 confirmed illnesses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control yesterday fingered the culprit: frozen raw yellowfin tuna product, known as Nakaochi Scrape, from Moon Marine USA Corporation.

Nakaochi Scrape is tuna backmeat that is scraped from the bones of tuna and may be used in sushi, sashimi, ceviche, and similar dishes. The product looks like raw ground tuna. Often it’s sold as spicy tuna sushi. The raw yellowfin tuna product may have passed through several distributors before reaching the restaurant and grocery market and may not be clearly labeled.

Did you know that’s what you may be getting when you get your fancy pants sushi? Amy didn’t.

I tried to explain to Amy and dozens of reporters over the past few days, why it’s sometimes a good idea to use technology to get whatever protein is available from whatever source: but a McRib isn’t actually a rib; it’s the scrapped and gathered pieces of pork mixed with secret spices and formed into a familiar shape of deliciousness to not scare people off; sorta like how religious deities appear. Same with a lot of chicken thingies. And many have now heard of pink slime.

But sushi is for the refined crowd, who don’t lower themselves to other proteinly indulgences. At least that’s what foodies tell me.

Kill steps to control dangerous bacteria are important. So is consumer choice and buyer beware. I’m going to visit my fish monger later today. The muddies are ripe, and the barramundi are plentiful.

Reclaim the name: say it now and say it proud pink slime

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I was flattered that Stephen Colbert repeated my advice to American beef processors to reclaim, rather than shun, pink slime.

“We’re here, it’s steer, technically.

“Forget ‘Dude, it’s beef’ from now on it’s ‘Bro, it’s slime.’”

Video here, but not in all countries http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/03/stephen-colbert-on-the-beefstate-governors-pink-slime.php.