It appears pre-cut/pre-packaged meat is under fire for its use of carbon monoxide to maintain redness in Congress.
While preserving sales along with the meat’s bright pink hue, the practice is coming under fire from a rival business and consumer groups.
The CEOs of Hormel and Cargill, who testified in Congress on Tuesday, say there’s no public health risk, a conclusion which gets significant backing from the scientific community and the government, which has approved the practice.
But in political terms, this is a battle between industry rivals that have each recruited their state’s congressional delegation to help advance their cause.
On one side are Hormel and Cargill, who have turned to Minnesota Democrats Collin Peterson, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and Tim Walz, whose district includes Hormel’s Austin, Minn., headquarters.
On the other side are Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak, both Democrats from Michigan, the home base of Kalsec Foods, a rival company that is marketing a patented rosemary extract that keeps red meat from turning brown on the grocery store shelf.
If only it were as simple of an issue as “carnivores want their steak bloody red!!!”
Of course the manufacturer can package the precut meat in an oxygen proof tray but then the meat wouldn’t turn red until after opening, and really, who wants to buy dark meat?
It isn’t just about redness, though. It’s about screwing blue collar workers out of good jobs at the retail level and reducing cost by cutting, trimming, traying, wrapping, weighing and pricing at the processing plant.
In the effort to squeeze every last penny out of expenses, retailers (starting with Wal-Mart all the way down) have decided that customer service isn’t important in the meat department and that the manufacturer knows best which thickness of steak a customer should have, not the customer him or herself.
I’ve worked in retail meat departments, so I know a thing or two about this subject (I know everything, too, but that’s irrelevant). Do I think legislation banning CO in meat should be in order? Probably not, but there probably should be stricter legislation on shelf life. As an alternative to legislation, if American consumers don’t want meat products packaged in carbon monoxide they should tell the major retailers that by supporting smaller meat markets and grocery stores that still cut steaks and roasts fresh off the primal in the store.
If consumers are satisfied with mediocrity, why should the retailer provide anything more? There may be a premium at the checkout for a while, but if the larger supermarkets are throwing away more of the prepackaged crap than they are selling, they will be forced to return to selling fresh meat cut on-site. Of course, as the Wege noted Saturday, even service counters have to produce quality fresh looking products.
Of course then Wal-Mart might be forced to hire meat cutters again (risking unionization, history lesson here) or simply getting the hell out of the fresh grocery business. Neither possibility would be bad.
Ollie Ox has declared she shuns pre-packed meat already. Since her name indicates she is a heifer, I find it a bit of a conflict of interest that she is tying to blog about beef issues.
Regardless, when she speaks about liquid being pumped into to meat, that happens with just about all Hormel pork, prepackaged or not. Advertised as a “solution to add tenderness and juiciness” or something similar, the sodium phosphate based solution prevents bacteria from developing which, while also increasing the saltiness on the taste buds, increases shelf life, which then increases benefit to the bottom line.
