Day 285 - 23 Oct 96 - Page 33
1 So I think the words were there is some discrepancy as to
2 what constitutes US beef, something like that.
3
4 And as far as we can see, the FSIS notice that -- if you
5 remember the memo regarding what the law was as far as the
6 FSIS is concerned.... I mean, I am not doing this
7 properly. I should be getting all these documents out.
8 But the memo states, we submit, that it would be illegal
9 to characterise or categorise a finished product as
10 anything other than US beef unless a food company could
11 satisfy the FSIS that it was one hundred percent emanating
12 from another country which they could identify and show it
13 was from that country.
14
15 Consequently, there is a great gaping hole in this
16 labelling system, because, as we have all heard, beef,
17 once it is checked, having arrived in the country from
18 abroad, is re-labelled US beef or domestic product. Dr.
19 Gonzalez recognised on day 68, page 15, line 1, that --
20 well, he said "may", a farm may not have an establishment
21 number. I think the situation is established that process
22 plants and slaughter houses have a number assigned to
23 their product. I don't know since when. Dr. Gonzalez
24 anyway only knows from a certain time.
25
26 But the point being that beef from abroad that ends up in
27 a process plant or at a process plant connected to a
28 slaughter house or storage plant connected to a slaughter
29 house, will presumably adopt the number from that place
30 and appear to be sourced from there.
31
32 We have found the reference for the letter from Otto and
33 Sons, which is a division of OSI industries, one of their
34 major suppliers, one of McDonald's major suppliers in the
35 USA, and it is volume 15, yellow, tab 85 subsection 2. It
36 says: November 10th 1989. Our customer requires that the
37 beef we supply them originate from domestic sources.
38 There appears to be some discrepancy under the USDA
39 international programmes department import division as to
40 what constitutes domestic beef. In an effort to clarify
41 this situation, we need assurance from you, our supplier,
42 that all boneless beef offered to Otto and Sons be derived
43 from beef cuts sourced within the continental boundaries
44 of the United States. Therefore as a continuing supplier,
45 please have an officer of your company sign the following
46 statement and return it to me as soon as possible.
47
48 And the statement read: As a beef supplier to Otto and
49 Sons we guarantee that all boneless beef offered to you
50 will be from beef animals slaughtered within the
51 continental boundaries of the United States.
52
53 Not surprisingly, that was exactly what they got back. We
54 do not know, of course, there is nothing to say that every
55 supplier returned that statement. We do not know if every
56 supplier was written to, whether some suppliers said that
57 we could not guarantee this, therefore they were
58 discontinued or whatever. We do not know in the replies
59 indeed how the person replying knew that fact, verified
60 it, whether it had always been true. It is all in the
