Tag Archives: xl foods

18 sickened: Court OKs $4-million settlement over E. coli beef recall in Canada

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An Alberta court has approved a $4-million settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed after an E. coli outbreak that sparked the largest meat recall in Canadian history.

mediocrity-mediocrity-lazy-slob-beer-mediocre-demotivational-posters-1335853439-235x300The lawsuit was against XL Foods Inc., which operated a meat-packing plant in southern Alberta during the tainted beef recall in the fall of 2012.

Lawyer Clint Docken says hundreds of people in Canada and the United States could apply by the Aug. 17 deadline.

Under the agreement, which refers to possible E. coli O157 contamination, XL Foods does not accept any wrongdoing or liability (it was all documented in a report).

XL Foods recalled more than 1.8 million kilograms of beef in Canada and the United States, and the plant in Brooks, Alta., was later sold to JBS Canada.

Settlement reached in XL Foods beef recall

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A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit over the largest meat recall in Canadian history.

XL.fine.foodsThe lawsuit was launched against XL Foods based in Brooks, Alberta after 18 people got sick with E. coli after eating tainted meat in 2012.

The majority of the $4 million settlement will go to those poisoned by the meat, health care providers and claims will also be paid out to consumers who had to throw out the tainted products.

The settlement still has to be approved by the courts.

Double secret probation: ‘Special team’ to check work of CFIA inspectors

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Health Minister Rona Ambrose is sending a special team to check the work of nearly 40 Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors at a meat processing plant in Alberta.

“I’m going to send them in to make sure everything is okay,” Ambrose said during question period Thursday, after NDP MP Laurin Liu said Canadians are at risk because of inadequate E. coli testing.

CTV News first reported Wednesday on government documents that show meat tainted with E. coli bacteria from the plant in Brooks, Alta., was detected by U.S. food inspectors in 2014.

That was two years after the government shut down the plant – formerly operated by XL Foods – after at least 18 people were sickened by meat containing the bacteria.

The documents also noted hygiene concerns, including employees standing in “two to three inches of pooling blood and contaminated water,” lack of running water in the bathroom sinks, and unflushed toilets with fecal matter.

JBS Foods, the Brazil-based company that now owns the plant, said any problems indicated in the inspections have been resolved.

Ambrose said that a 2014 Conference Board of Canada report that ranked Canada’s food inspection system first among 17 industrialized countries is proof the CFIA is “doing an excellent job.”

It’s proof politicians will cite bogus studies and believe their own press releases.

Pinto defense? We meet all government standards: More problems at Alberta meat plant

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In 2012, XL Foods in Alberta sickened 18 people with E. coli O157:H7, led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history, and the plant was subsequently bought by JBS of Brazil.

doug.vegaFollowing in the tradition of Walkerton’s E. coli O157 outbreak and Maple Leaf’s Listeria outbreak, an independent review panel has concluded the outbreak was caused by mediocrity.

The largest beef recall in Canadian history happened because a massive Alberta producer regularly failed to clean its equipment properly, reacted too slowly once it realized it was shipping contaminated meat, and on-site government inspectors failed to notice key problems at the plant.

“It was all preventable,” concludes an independent review of the 2012 XL Foods Inc. beef recall, in which 1,800 products were removed from the Canadian and U.S. markets and 18 consumers became sick.

According to the report, the company did not practice what to do in the event of a major recall, and its staff failed to ensure equipment was regularly and properly cleaned. Canadian Food Inspection Agency workers at the plant failed to notice the problems. These and many other issues persisted four years after the government promised sweeping food-safety reforms in response to the 2008 listeria bacteria contamination at Maple Leaf Foods that took the lives of 23 Canadians and led to serious illness in 57 others who ate tainted meat products.

“It was not that long ago,” the report notes in reference to the 2008 recall. “Canada’s food-safety system – then, as now – is recognized as one of the best in the world. Yet, a mere four years later, Canadians found themselves asking how this could have happened once again.”

No, Canada exists in a bubble, with comfortable fairy tales about the best health care in the world and the safest food in the world.

Any outside observer could look at the available data and say, What ….?

Now, documents obtained by CTV News through an Access to Information request show that in one instance in 2014, E. coli was found in meat exported to the United States from the Brooks, Alta. plant now owned by JBS Food Canada.

U.S. food inspectors detected the tainted meat before it ended up on store shelves.

Unsafe meat was exported in three other instances, documents show, but the exact problem is blanked out in the report.

In one instance, a plant worker didn’t do proper testing for E. coli.

The person responsible for on-site verification of the sampling said she “wasn’t really paying attention.”

For its part, JBS Foods said any problems indicated in the inspections have been resolved.

Some of the reports documents made note of instances where employees were standing in two to three inches of pooling blood, contaminated water, and were splashing product when walking.

Employee hygiene was also a concern. Inspectors found:

  • No running water in the women’s and men’s bathroom sinks
  • No running water in men’s urinal
  • Toilets let unflushed with fecal matter
  • No paper towels

In a follow-up statement to CTV News, JBS Food said the company “is meeting all relevant food safety standards.”

Pinto defense (which was close to a Vega).

Deal to settle part of Canadian E. coli beef recall lawsuit

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Lawyers have brokered a tentative deal to settle part of a class-action lawsuit filed over an E. coli outbreak and the largest meat recall in Canadian history.

XL.foodsThe lawsuit is against XL Foods Inc., which operated a meat-packing plant in southern Alberta during the tainted beef recall in 2012.

Rick Mallett, a lawyer for the Edmonton law firm behind the class action, said the settlement is to cover refunds to consumers for products that were recalled.

He said the proposed $1-million settlement, plus other costs, is to go before a judge early next year for approval.

“The parties have reached a settlement on beef refund claims subject to approval of the court,” Mallett said Tuesday following a hearing in Court of Queen’s Bench.

“It applies to anyone who purchased recalled beef — XL beef — and disposed of it and didn’t get a refund.”

XL Foods recalled more than 1.8 million kilograms of beef in Canada and the United States.

In its statement of defence the company has denied liability and the allegations contained in the class action. The plant in Brooks was sold to JBS Canada last year.

Followup after recalls a problem for Canadian food inspection agency, auditor finds

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It’s sortofa repetitious Canadian thing: a bunch of people get sick and some die, an investigation is carried out, problems are noted, the bureaucrats say they’ve already fixed things and everyone goes back to sleep until the next outbreak.

So it’s not surprising the auditor general says the largest meat recall in Canada’s history – that would be the E. coli O157 outbreak last year bureaucratlinked to the former XL Foods in Alberta — exposed serious shortcomings at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The latest report from auditor general Michael Ferguson says the food inspection agency struggles to follow up on routine recalls and to manage major files, such as the one last year at XL Foods.

Ferguson’s team found widespread confusion among agency officials during emergencies.

During the XL Foods recall, for example, the company received multiple calls from agency officials who apparently didn’t know that their responsibilities shifted during the emergency.

The report says all those calls created confusion and added to the company’s already considerable workload during the crisis.

There was further confusion after the agency ordered one distributor to recall products from a date that was not part of the recall.

So why not make food producers publicly accountable, rather than to a bloated agency, and market food safety at retail that can be verified.

Data? You can’t handle data; trust us we’re doing better

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In 2012, XL Foods in Alberta sickened at least 18 people with E. coli O157:H7, and led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history; the huge slaughterhouse was subsequently bought by JBS of Brazil.

An independent review panel concluded the outbreak was cause by mediocrity both at the plant and government overseers.

So when the new Canadian president for JBS told an ol’ timey meet-and-greet tour he wouldn’t reveal E. coli incidence rates and you.cant.handle.truththat the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has that figure and JBS is accountable to them, it doesn’t inspire confidence.

Van Solkema said now, six months after the change of ownership, there are four times fewer positive E. coli samples showing up in in-plant tests.

Alberta Liberal health critic Dr. David Swann — who visited the plant under its previous ownership when he was Medical Officer of Health — told the Calgary Herald in general, he was impressed by what he saw Friday.

But Swann also seems to get it, that to build trust and have consumers buy a product, some are going to want to know things, like how often the production line needs to be slowed or halted for one reason or another, how many samples test positive for E. coli contamination, and how much meat is thrown away each month.

“We need to have some kind of objective measures to say this is a safer plant or a safer product than any others,” Swann said. “We need more numbers — injury rate, E. coli rate, throwaway rate, and high-speed line infraction. That would be helpful for everybody, to know that the plant is operating at high levels.”

Having a slaughterhouse president and government inspectors say they are doing a bang-up job, in the absence of any public data, is meaningless.

The JBS plant at Brooks has 2,400 employees and processes 3,800 cattle each day. The plant produces 250 different beef products — the majority of which is shipped to Canadian customers. Beef from Brooks also goes to other markets, including the U.S., Mexico, Egypt, and Asia.

 

18 sick in E. coli outbreak ‘entirely preventable’ Food safety leaders create perceptions rather than follow; surveys still suck

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Eighteen people got sick from E. coli O157:H7 in Canada in 2012 leading to the recall of 1,800 products because both the company, XL Foods, and government inspectors, sucked at safety.

The Calgary Herald reiterates this point by arguing that a large number of food inspectors are irrelevant if they’re lax in their duties. And inspectors are there mediocrityto set a minimal standard – which they failed miserably at XL Foods – while the company that makes the profit should be responsible and go far and above government standards; the best companies do.

But in this sea of mediocrity, where terribly sick people are an afterthought, leave it to the University of Guelph to proclaim that “Canadians bounced back from the 2012 beef scare relating to E. coli bacteria, and that “when dealing with such a massive recall, regulators and industry may want to expand the scope of their risk communication strategy.”

Someone paid for this?

Duh; XL Foods recall was product of preventable errors, lack of food safety culture

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Oh Canada. Why stand on guard for mediocrity?

In 1985, 19 of 55 sickened at a London, Ontario nursing home were killed by E. coli O157:H7 in their roast beef sandwiches.

The Ontario government called for mandatory training for food service types in health care institutions. The same ones that thought it was a good idea to serve mediocritychilled deli meats to immunocomprimised elderly folks in 2008 that lead to 23 deaths from Listeria.

I needed 36 hours of training to coach little girls hockey; no one needs anything to kill people with food.

In 2000, seven died and 2,500 were sickened in the town of Walkerton, Ontario, population 5,000, when E. coli O157:H7 got into the drinking water supply and the local manager added chlorine to the system based on smell.

In 2012, XL Foods in Alberta sickened 18 people with E. coli O157:H7, and led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history, and the plant was subsequently bought by JBS of Brazil.

Following in the tradition of Walkerton and Maple Leaf’s listeria, an independent review panel has concluded the outbreak was caused by mediocrity.

Perhaps I’m paraphrasing.

The Globe and Mail isn’t.

The largest beef recall in Canadian history happened because a massive Alberta producer regularly failed to clean its equipment properly, reacted too slowly once it realized it was shipping contaminated meat, and on-site government inspectors failed to notice key problems at the plant.

“It was all preventable,” concludes an independent review of the 2012 XL Foods Inc. beef recall, in which 1,800 products were removed from the Canadian and U.S. markets and 18 consumers became sick.

According to the report, the company did not practice what to do in the event of a major recall, and its staff failed to ensure equipment was regularly and mediocrity-mediocrity-lazy-slob-beer-mediocre-demotivational-posters-1335853439properly cleaned. Canadian Food Inspection Agency workers at the plant failed to notice the problems. These and many other issues persisted four years after the government promised sweeping food-safety reforms in response to the 2008 listeria bacteria contamination at Maple Leaf Foods that took the lives of 23 Canadians and led to serious illness in 57 others who ate tainted meat products.

“It was not that long ago,” the report notes in reference to the 2008 recall. “Canada’s food-safety system – then, as now – is recognized as one of the best in the world. Yet, a mere four years later, Canadians found themselves asking how this could have happened once again.”

No, Canada exists in a bubble, with comfortable fairy tales about the best health care in the world and the safest food in the world.

Any outside observer could look at the available data and say, What ….?

The panel said “it was a series of inadequate responses by two key players in the food-safety continuum that played the most critical part leading to the September, 2012, event at XL Foods Inc. – plant and CFIA staff.”

Will Canadian reporters please stop quoting union officials, government types and industry apologists – and they are abundant – because they are all complicit in the rewarding of mediocrity, even when a lot of people get sick.

The panel was chaired by Ronald Lewis and included two other doctors, André Corriveau and Ronald Usborne. They report the root cause of the problem was likely an animal that was heavily contaminated with E. coli-157:H7.

“As the contaminated carcass moved through the plant, the bacteria became lodged in or on a piece of equipment within the establishment,” the report states. “It seems likely that sanitation was inadequate.”

The report is highly critical of XL Foods Inc. for its poor communication with both the CFIA and the public, particularly for not providing CFIA with information about the contamination quickly after it was discovered. The no-mediocrity-300x3003company was sold earlier this year to JBS South America of Brazil. However, the independent review also found several issues with the performance of the CFIA.

“For its part, CFIA was clearly not monitoring the company’s [Food Safety Enhancement Program] and identifying deficiencies as carefully as they should have been,” the report states.

The report makes 30 recommendations for reform, including a call for Health Canada to give “prompt consideration” to approving irradiation of Canadian beef products. It also calls on the Minister of Health to assess the effectiveness of the CFIA’s activities related to its meat program.

Here’s a different suggestion: anyone that produces food for public consumption assumes a responsibility of safety; the best companies will brag about their safety shield, rather than hide behind the cloak of shitty government inspection.

At a news conference, the inexplicably still employed federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz spouted some recycled shit about a new inspection verification system with a team of 30 inspectors at a cost $16-million over three years, and promised to act on all the recommendations because “Canadian consumers remain our No. 1 priority when it comes to food safety. As we all know, no system is perfect.”

Pump up the mediocrity.

Paul Mayer, vice-president at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told a telephone news conference that these teams will be “a second set of eyes” to check both the food companies and the front-line CFIA staff. That speaks to the chief recommendation the study team made – that the companies and CFIA need to foster a culture of food safety.

Food safety culture has definitely jumped the shark

If the first set of eyes isn’t working, why would a second?

Pump, pump, pump up the mediocrity.

As  Jim Romahn writes, the company clearly comes off worst, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, producers and retailers all share some responsibility for the biggest beef recall in Canadian history – 4,000 tonnes of beef, 1,800 products distributed across Canada and into the United States. Exports to 20 nations were impacted, especially to Japan and Hong Kong.

Meat and any food suppliers or producers should market safety at retail. There’s been too much faith, too many sick peope, and too many repetitive reports sayig the same thing. Let consumers choose, and brag about food safety.

Or wait till the next outbreak and appoint a panel to come to the same Groundhog Day conclusions.

Canadians ‘need to know’ about mechanically tenderized meat

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As XL Foods prepares to open next week, it’s still not clear if XL used meat tenderization in its processing, yet Alberta Health Services has previously suggested that tenderization of steaks at Costco stores in Alberta may have factored in the E. coli illnesses.

Shouldn’t it be easy to ask?

Mechanical meat tenderizers use needles and blades to penetrate steak and roasts. Health Canada says the process of mechanically tenderizing meat is a “very common practice” that is used by suppliers, retailers and restaurants “to improve the tenderness and flavour of cooked beef.”

The process can also drive E. coli on the surface of the meat into the centre, making it harder to kill during cooking, CBC’s Marketplace found during a recent test.

Marketplace worked with Rick Holley, a food scientist and microbiologist at the University of Manitoba, to see how the mechanical tenderization process works and what potential risks might exist.

Holley said up to two per cent of meat cuts, steaks in particular, can carry the organism on the surface.

In a test, Holley spread E. coli O157:H7 that he grew in a lab on a piece of beef. The meat was then run through the machines to see what happened to the bacteria on the surface.

In that instance, Holley found that 10 per cent of the bacteria from the surface was forced into the centre of the meat.

An earlier test using a gel visible under ultraviolet light also found that the material on the surface of the meat doesn’t only contaminate the meat – it can also spread to the needles or blades on a tenderizing machine. Holley said it can be “almost impossible” to properly clean the machines, which can then spread E. coli to other pieces of meat that are tenderized.

It’s not clear exactly how much meat processed in Canada goes through mechanical tenderization, but the Public Health Agency of Canada says in a study it could be between 20 to 50 per cent.

It’s difficult to tell which meat products have been tenderized, because after the meat has been treated the tiny holes seal up and disappear.

Holley said that the recent E. coli outbreak is just another symptom of a continuing problem. “Clearly, what we are seeing represents a failure, again, in the system,” he said. “And if things don’t change, we can expect to see this in the future.”

Canada’s agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz, said Friday federal officials are looking at issues surrounding mechanically tenderized meat, stating, such a label would warn people “that if you’re buying this tenderized product at a lesser price, because it’s a lesser cut of meat that’s been tenderized, that it should be labelled to warn you to cook it beyond the temperature that’s required.”