The headlines — “Horse Meat Scandal Rocks the EU” or “Feds Indict Four in Salmonella Outbreak” — demonstrate it clearly: Food safety and quality issues and the responses to them are at an all-time high.

When it comes to the production of meat, the things industry can’t see are the things industry fears the most.

FSIS is amending the Federal meat and poultry products inspection regulations to allow for the use of sodium benzoate, sodium propionate, and benzoic acid as antimicrobials in certain ready-to-eat meat and poultry products.

Without a little TLC, slicers couldn't effectively slice product nor keep it pathogen-free.

Indeed, sometimes really bad things, such as outbreaks and recalls, happen to really good companies.

At presstime in late February, sequestration had become the No. 1 topic for the meat and poultry industry.

For many years the USDA: Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has had a website on the Internet. At one point in time the website had gotten very large and was difficult to navigate.

Cardinal Meats experienced its first recall in 2007. The details surrounding the recall were typical for a burger processor: We unknowingly purchased boneless beef from a CFIA approved supplier – this meat was contaminated with E.coli O157:H7.