Consumer Groups Cry Foul Over State Meat Inspections
March 29, 2011
La Villarena Meat & Pork Inc. enjoys a close relationship with state regulators. Since 2009, inspectors from the Florida Department of Agriculture have closed the Miami meatpacking plant more than 60 times for sanitary violations: moldy cutting boards, animal residue on slicing equipment, dead flies on the floor, and so on. Each time, the plant has been deemed fit to reopen within hours. La Villarena is one of nearly 160 mostly small companies -- accounting for a roughly $100 million slice of Florida's meatpacking industry -- subject to state, rather than federal, inspection because they don't ship across state lines. And its experience helps explain why some consumer groups complain that inspection, enforcement and follow-up in Florida's meat-inspection program all fall short, putting consumers at risk by failing to maintain standards already considered low. Auditors for the state government have come to similar conclusions, and even officials in the inspection program concede shortcomings. The meatpackers, for their part, are fighting for the status quo, arguing that the alternative -- inspection by the avowedly more-stringent U.S. Department of Agriculture -- would damage their business. Though these companies generally don't sell to the likes of Winn Dixie Inc., the huge Jacksonville-based chain well-known for its ``Beef People'' slogan, they do account for an estimated 90 million pounds of meat sold each year to Florida hotels, restaurants and smaller grocers. (In all, 24 states have a dual-inspection system.) Lethal to Business Luise Isaac, plant manager at La Villarena, says the company can't afford the $200,000 for the repairs and other changes needed to meet federal construction standards, and he says no one has ever been harmed by eating the company's meats. Jina Ferebee, owner of Fussell's Frozen Foods in Arcadia, agrees: USDA inspections ``could mean the end of my business,'' he says. And in Port Orange, Hampson Behrens, president of Himes's Country Sausage, adds: ``If the USDA comes in, we could have problems.'' The critics say statements like that are reason enough to hand off inspection duty of all Florida meatpackers to the USDA, which announced tough new meat-safety guidelines just in time for the Fourth of July barbecue feeding frenzy. ``The fact that they are even making that argument suggests trouble,'' says Rodrick Leonel, the former chief of the USDA's food-safety division and current president of Community Nutrition Action Institute, a Washington-based consumer group. Janiece Stevens, who heads the state program, says many of the plants her staff inspect fail to meet even the old federal guidelines, though federal food-safety laws require that they do. State inspectors, Ms. Stevens says, exercise a measure of leniency that probably wouldn't exist under federal control, as in the shutdowns and quick reopenings at La Villarena. ``We're patient with small businesses,'' she says. ``I would venture to say that 50% to 60% of these (processors) would go out of business under federal inspection.'' The state has issued dozens of waivers to smaller meatpackers, allowing them to continue operations with structural problems too expensive to correct. Ms. Stevens denies that consumers are in any way at risk. Bonny Hooks, a Lantana resident whose daughter nearly died in 1990 after eating a tainted fast-food hamburger, thinks arguments for ``flexibility'' collapse when weighed against the protection of consumers. ``Why give anyone more of a chance to put out a product that may be contaminated?'' says the former president of Safe Tables Our Priority, a national watchdog group. Poor Showing Certainly, evidence has built in recent years that state-inspected meatpackers often fail to meet basic standards. Consider: In a 2009 report obtained recently by this newspaper, the USDA auditor-general repeatedly singled out Florida for substandard inspection practices, including two instances in which state inspectors allegedly allowed contaminated meat to be sold. The report said Florida's lab tests designed to identify meat-born germs were inadequate. Nine meatpacking plants had no records of any lab tests. One of them had been repeatedly warned about rodent and insect infestations. Of 90 plants across the country examined in the federal survey, only two, both in Florida, had to be closed for health-related violations. A 2009 audit by Florida's Office of Program and Policy Analysis found that the state largely failed to enforce standards at many of the meatpackers it inspected. A sampling of 5,958 state inspections at 26 plants resulted in findings of violations 86% of the time, reflecting ``consistent patterns of sanitary violations,'' the auditors said. Yet they said brief closings like those at La Villarena failed to curb violations, and that Florida inspectors too often stopped short of the next enforcement step: warning letters, fines and permit suspensions. The auditors also faulted inspectors for lack of thoroughness. They noted that a 2009 state inspection of an Arcadia slaughterhouse reported no major violations. Ninety days later, another inspector concluded that the previous in-depth review ``did not accurately reflect conditions at the plant.'' Among the problems she said were previously missed: walls covered with mold and grease, fecal matter on animal carcasses, and rat droppings. A follow-up review by state auditors last year concluded that while conditions are improving, major gaps remain in the food-safety network. For instance, a computer system used to track lab tests for meat-born bacteria won't be ready until next year. Preliminary numbers gathered by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta place Florida among the 10 states reporting the most outbreaks of food-born illnesses from 1988 to 1991. Tallahassee's budget cuts have stretched the program's resources to the breaking point. State inspection records show that because of unfilled job slots, inspectors have been required to be at two plants at the same time. The state employs 70 inspectors to watch over nearly 160 plants; the USDA has 113 inspectors for the 112 Florida plants it polices. Under the Knife Just last year, state lawmakers slashed the Department of Agriculture's overall funding 25%, to $1.4 million, prompting the agency to consider turning over its inspection program to the USDA. But after intense lobbying by meatpackers, the Legislature agreed to continue state inspections at least to the end of the current fiscal year, through June 2012. The program now operates with less money and fewer inspectors than it did when federal and state auditors made their unflattering assessments two years ago. Dr. Stevens says uncertainty over the future of the program she runs has only exacerbated high rates of staff turnover; four of the program's five district managers are new to their posts. The situation worries Carolyn Jon Badillo, director of the food-safety division of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer group. ``In the short run,'' she says, ``state costs are going to go up because of the need for increased training and laboratory testing'' to comply with new federal rules, she says. ``I would be very concerned that Florida believes it can transition to the newer standards with less resources.'' The USDA stamp of approval would give currently state-inspected meatpackers access to such larger customers as Orlando-based Darden Restaurants Inc., many of whom will buy only federally inspected meat. But, as Ms. Stevens says, many of the meatpackers fear the USDA. ``Let's say the USDA inspector goes to a plant and finds that it's dirty,'' Ms. Stevens says. ``He hangs a tag on the door closing the plant because it's dirty and he's gone. It would never occur to him to come back after lunch to see if the owner had called in cousins and friends, or more employees, and had cleaned.'' That's true, says a USDA spokeswoman in Washington. She says the agency makes no apologies for its procedures, which she says are strict, but fair. Burden of Construction Mr. Ferebee, the owner of Fussell's Frozen Foods in Arcadia, prefers the flexibility of state inspectors. Three employees slaughter beef and hogs in a plant Mr. Ferebee's family built more than 50 years ago. The overhead racks that move animal carcasses along the line are lower than the 11 feet from the ground required by federal rules. Mr. Ferebee says that meeting federal guidelines ``would entail raising my whole roof.'' In Port Orange, Kolb's Country Sausage would have to build separate employee break rooms and locker rooms to pass muster with the USDA, but city building codes won't allow expansion. ``Our property is only so big,'' says Mr. Behrens, who learned the sausage-making trade from his parents in Austria. If he expands, he says, he risks ``running out of parking space for my trucks.'' Sen. Charlott Arnett, an Indian Harbor Republican who voted in favor of keeping the Florida program alive, nonetheless says meatpackers should try to measure up to federal standards just in case the USDA eventually takes over all meat inspections in the state. ``The businesses are going to have to totally revamp with new equipment, paint, types of rails used to move meat in and out, and cutting boards,'' Mr. Arnett says. ``All of that is going to meet federal standards.'' Without broadly based public pressure, though, the state-inspected meatpackers have little incentive to change. Indeed, State Rep. Lemmons Mccollum, a Crestview Democrat and family physician, thinks the Florida inspection program is adequate as is, and, he notes: ``We haven't had a lot of complaints about it.''
