The product subject to recall is 1-pound, 13-ounce bags of “Great Value Fully Cooked Chicken Nuggets.” Each bag bears the establishment number “P-33944” as well as a case code of “89008 A0160” on the backside of the packaging. There is also a “Best If Used By” date of June 9, 2011.
Each case contains 8 bags and the frozen chicken nugget products were produced on June 9, 2010, and were shipped to a single retail store chain nationwide. The company discovered small pieces of blue plastic after receiving consumer complaints. FSIS has not received any reports of injury at this time.
Source: FSIS
Chicken imports to Russia to start soon, improving chicken leg prices
BMO Capital Markets analyst Kenneth Zaslow expects chicken exports to Russia to resume within weeks. The second largest importer of U.S. chicken in 2009, Russia enacted a ban last winter over safety concerns. But officials last month said they would lift the ban, which could push up prices and, in turn, profit for U.S. producers.Zaslow said it will take a week to pack and ship a full load, with work to begin this week, and he expects leg prices to rise at least to 45 cents per pound from 38 cents per pound last month, reports the Associated Press.
The industry is recovering from a downturn caused by weak demand and high ingredient costs, and Zaslow said ingredient costs are going up again.
"The reopening of the Russian border could not have come at a better time, in our opinion," he said.
Source: Associated Press
Groups call for end to ethanol subsidies
National Meat Association joined a coalition of livestock and poultry trade associations today to call the Senate to allow a 30-year-old tax credit and a protective tariff for ethanol to expire. Government support for corn-ethanol has hit feed prices hard, noted the groups. The agriculture economy is being damaged by these programs, specifically by the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) and the import tariff on foreign ethanol.“We cannot allow ill-conceived national policy to continue damaging our members, the industry and indeed the entire economy. Food security is of critical importance, as are alternative fuels, and it’s time we found a way to support both without threatening either,” said NMA CEO Barry Carpenter.
The request was made in a letter signed by the American Meat Institute, the National Turkey Federation, the National Chicken Council, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the National Pork Producer’s Council, as well as National Meat Association.
“The blender’s tax credit, coupled with the import tariff on foreign ethanol, has distorted the corn market, increased the cost of feeding animals, and squeezed production margins, resulting in job losses and bankruptcies in rural communities across America,” stated the letter, which can be read online at
http://nmaonline.org/pdf/07.16.10.Ltr.to.Sen.Reid.&.McConnell.on.ethanol.tax.credits.FINAL.pdf.
Some environmental groups, like the Natural Resource Defense Council, are also calling for an end to the subsidues, arguing that growing the corn and converting it to ethanol requires too much energy.
Sasha Lyutse of NRDC wrote on a blog on The CBO Report, “We are spending billions in scarce taxpayer dollars to prop up a decades-old corn ethanol industry and a mature, polluting technology.”
Source: NMA, Bnet.com
