Protecting Food. Empowering Whistleblowers.
Protecting Food. Empowering Whistleblowers.
FIC Director Amanda Hitt speaks with Katy Keiffer on this episode of What Doesn’t Kill You about why Hormel’s participation in USDA’s high-speed hog inspection program is a “recipe for disaster.” Listen to the episode (46 minutes) here.
By TREY MEWES Meat inspectors are speaking out against a high-speed pork production program used by several Hormel Foods Corp. factories. The Government Accountability Project released four affidavits from working and recently retired meat inspectors on Monday, all of whom denounced a Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points project for increasing the contamination in meat […]
KAAL-TV, the ABC affiliate in Austin, Minnesota (where Hormel is headquartered) covered a television news story about USDA whistleblowers at Hormel pork plants raising concerns about high-speed hog inspection. The print version of the story is below. By DAN CONRADT A USDA pilot project is drawing criticism, and that criticism is being felt close to […]
by CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN Toenails, hair and fecal matter are finding their way into Americans’ pork under new, faster slaughterhouse regulations. Whistleblowers from inside the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have spoken out against a recent pilot program, saying they let harmful materials be passed on to consumers. They claim that fewer inspectors and higher […]
by TED GENOWAYS Four U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meat inspectors, all working in slaughter operations owned or operated by the Hormel Foods Corporation, have come forward this week with shocking allegations in affidavits offered to the whistleblower protection organization Government Accountability Project (GAP). A government-run pilot program experimenting with a reduced inspection protocol in […]
by JENNY PETERS In love with bacon, pulled-pork BBQ and a lovely pork chop now and then? Then buyer beware, as some of the pig products coming to grocery butcher shelves and restaurant refrigerators may not be getting the proper inspection needed to prove they’re not contaminated with some pretty disgusting stuff. The Government Accountability […]
Last Friday, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) released affidavits from four federal inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s high-speed inspection pilot program who have come forward with their concerns about the system. “Under the HIMP model, company inspectors take over the duties of USDA inspectors at the lymph node incision and head inspection stations,” […]
by MELISSA CRONIN Add this to the lengthy list of problems created by America’s factory farming complex: poop, hair and toenails on your plate. Over the past few years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been trying out a new, faster way of inspecting the slaughter of hogs, known as the The Hazard Analysis […]
by WYATT WILLIAMS On a cold December morning, Craig Watts met me in the driveway of the farmhouse that his great-grandfather had built in North Carolina more than a century ago. His family has been working on this land for much longer, perhaps hundreds of years, but as Watts led me into his house, it […]
By LINDSAY ABRAMS If you preferred not to know what’s in your ham, bacon and Spam before, you’re really not going to want to know now. The USDA is piloting a new pork inspection program that features sped-up lines and a reduction in government inspectors — and its own inspectors are now speaking out publicly […]