Tyson to end gassing packaged meat
Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Tyson Foods Inc. will stop using carbon monoxide when packaging its case-ready meat products, the company confirmed Monday.
The toxic gas can be used to artificially maintain the redness of meat products and prevent the signs of aging.
Earlier this month, the Springdale meat producer told the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation that it would phase out the use of carbon monoxide by Sept. 7.
“We’ve been using carbon monoxide in only a very small percentage of our packages of case-ready beef, but have decided to discontinue this practice,” Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson wrote in an e-mail Monday.
“Our decision is based on a lack of customer demand for this type of packaging, not because of any food safety concern,” Mickelson wrote.
Case-ready meats are packaged at the processing plant, where they can be injected with certain solutions and flushed with gases to extend life. The uniform packaging makes grocery-store display easier. However, the product category is much smaller than Tyson’s customary tray-packaged meat, which isn’t treated with the gas.
Though using carbon monoxide in packaging is considered safe by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, consumer groups continue to pressure the federal government to outlaw the practice.
“We believe people could be misled into buying a product that could be close to spoiling or older than they think,” said Patty Lovera, the assistant director of Food and Water Watch, a consumer-advocacy group in Washington.
Lovera said that since Safeway Stores stopped buying meat treated with carbon monoxide in July, large meat processors have come under increasing pressure to discontinue the practice.
On June 26, the House Energy and Commerce Committee requested information about carbon monoxide in meat packages from several large food producers, including Tyson. Safeway also received one of those letters.
“The supply of meat at the grocer’s will indeed be safer and consumers will clearly benefit from the action [Tyson ] is taking. Tyson’s is to be congratulated on this voluntary decision,” Rep. John Dingell, DMich., chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a statement.
The chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Bart Stupak, D-Mich., also received Tyson’s notification.
“Unfortunately, neither the FDA nor the USDA regulators have demonstrated the same concern for consumers and the public health that Safeway and Tyson’s demonstrated by withdrawing deceptively packaged meat,” Stupak in a statement.
The FDA approved the use of carbon monoxide to treat meat in 2002, but the practice was outlawed in the Europe Union one year later. The FDA does not require companies to note the use of gas on its packaging.
According to the committee leaders, Hormel Foods Corp. and Cargill Inc. continue to use the carbon monoxide packaging process. Stupak indicated in his statement that Congress could take action against companies that continue to wash case-ready meat in carbon monoxide. Precept Foods, a joint venture between Hormel and Cargill that makes pork and beef, sent a 4, 100-page response to the house committee, Cargill spokesman Mark Klein said. “After reviewing the extensive data and information in this response, we trust they will agree that there are sufficient data” that using carbon monoxide in packaging is safe, Klein wrote in an e-mail Monday. Shares of Tyson increased 29 cents, or 1. 45 percent, to close at $ 20. 30 in Monday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
To contact this reporter: dirvin@arkansasonline. com
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