E. coli incidence rate down at plant, JBS says
The meat-packing plant at the centre of a major E. coli scandal last fall has seen a sharp decline in the number of samples testing positive for the bacteria, the facility’s management said Friday.
Willie Van Solkema, president of Canadian operations for JBS-USA, made the statement to reporters, farmers and politicians on a tour of the plant near Brooks. Tainted meat originating from the facility, which at the time was called XL Foods and owned by Edmontonbased Nilsson Bros., sickened 18 people and led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history.
Following the scandal, JBS — the Brazilian-based meat-packing giant — bought the Brooks facility and pledged to bring it up to the highest food safety standards. 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.
Van Solkema would not say what the plant’s current E. coli incidence rate is, adding only that the Cana- dian Food Inspection Agency has that figure and JBS is accountable to them.
However, he said JBS has not made drastic changes to the food safety practices and procedures that existed at XL — it has simply made sure those practices and procedures are enforced.
“I can’t comment on what happened with XL. The only thing I can tell you is that within the JBS corporate environment, we have processes that we absolutely have to adhere to. We get audited both internally and externally all the time, to make sure we follow the processes that we say we’re going to,” he said.
“I think we’re just more diligent about the processes that we use on the floor.”
Alberta Liberal health critic Dr. David Swann, who visited the plant under its previous ownership
I think we’re just more diligent about the processes that we use
WILLIE VAN SOLKEMA
whenhewasmedicalofficerofhealth, said in general he was impressed by what he saw on Friday’s tour.
“I’ve been through that plant several times. I noticed very quickly (this time) that there’s a more positive attitude — there’s an openness,” he said. “Every indication is that this is an improved plant that is doing a better job, both for the workers and for the quality of meat coming out of here.”
Still, Swann said the public deserves to know more about how this and other major food production facilities are performing.
He said he wants to know 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.”
An independent review into last fall’s XL Foods recall found that neither company quality assurance staff nor CFIA inspectors based at the plant at the time were properly analyzing test results for E. coli — a type of bacteria that lives in the intestines of cattle. Spikes of positive test results beyond five per cent at any given plant can indicate there is a larger sanitation problem at the facility, but on two days last August, the levels of positive results at XL reached or exceeded 10 per cent and the plant took no action to figure out what was wrong.
It was only later, after tainted meat was intercepted at the U.S. border and a Calgary processing plant, that the CFIA started looking for the cause and found clogged nozzles on a key carcass pasteurizer.
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.