Babbitt unveils modified proposal for grazing fees
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has unveiled a scaled-back version of a grazing proposal that he has repeatedly tried to implement through legislative or administrative actions.
The new proposal, which appeared in the Federal Register in March, would shift decision-making on federal land use toward the local level in several ways, including the creation of local advisory councils and allowing states to set certain conservation standards.
The new proposal includes a scaled-back version of grazing fees that the Interior Department proposed in August. Under the new plan, grazing fees would be set at $2.75 an animal unit month in 1995, $3.50 in 1996, $3.96 in 1997. But under the new plan, ranchers who exceed environmental standards could keep their fees at $2.75.
An Interior Department statement issued on the plan included several favorable but cautious comments from Govs. Cecil Andrus (D-Idaho), Bob Miller (D-Nev.) and Mike Sullivan (D-Wyo.)
Anna Aurilio, staff scientist at U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an environmental organization, criticized "weak standards and guidelines" in the plan. "The only teeth in the plan are those on the cows," she said.
Ranchers also were critical of the plan. "Babbitt's original proposal killed western ranching; the new proposal puts it in intensive care," said Brad Little of the American Sheep Industry.
Firm vies to irradiate meat
A company that uses gamma rays to sterilize everything from baby bottles to hip joint replacements wants to use its cobalt-60 on bacteria that causes hamburgers to spoil and sicken people.
Whippany, N.J.-based Isomedix Inc. will ask FDA to approve irradiation as a way to kill bacteria and other microorganisms on beef. FDA could approve the procedure by the end of the year.
But that would only be the first step in the process. USDA would then have to issue guidelines, which would not happen until next spring at the earliest. Then meat processors would have to gamble that the public will buy irradiated meat.
The poultry industry has rejected the process for chickens and turkeys despite FDA approval in 1990. Only a plant in Florida irradiates birds for a limited market. Irradiation has also been authorized for pork.
The beef industry supports irradiation, however. Last year's tainted beef incident in the Pacific Northwest, where three children died, renewed interest. USDA Secretary Mike Espy has also voiced support for the process.
Although irradiation has been touted for killing harmful bacteria, yeasts and mold, it also kills microorganisms that cause meat to spoil. Packing companies and supermarkets can profit from having more retail cuts prepared at the plant rather than in-store.
Oh Boy! Oberto adding
to meat snack empire
Oh Boy! Oberto Sausage Co. has purchased the meat snack brand names from Albany, Ore.-based Curtice-Burns Co. The acquisition makes Oh Boy! Oberto the No. 1 beef jerky producer in the nation.
According to terms of the agreement, Oh Boy! Oberto receives Curtice-Burns facilities, equipment, land and business, as well as the brand names of Smokecraft, Denver Dan's, Bacon Curls, Big Horn, Long Rider and Lowrey's.
The acquisition adds 200 employees and nearly $35 million in annual sales to Kent, Wash.-based Oh Boy! Oberto, which currently employs more than 500 people in Washington and Oregon, and controls a large share of the $510 million U.S. meat snack market.
"We were faced with the challenges of both building an additional manufacturing facility and developing new products in order to meet our growth goals," said Oh Boy! Oberto President Laura Oberto. "This deal just made financial sense."
For Curtice Burns, the move was part of its overall restructuring strategy, which includes selling off non-strategic or unprofitable businesses.
"This transaction successfully completes [our] restructuring," said J. William Petty, Curtice Burns president and CEO.
McDonald's ponders chain of sit-down restaurants
McDonald's Corp. is studying a new concept it describes as a sit-down restaurant chain serving home-style dinner foods such as roasted chicken, meat loaf and mashed potatoes.
The revelation signals a shift in strategy at the Oak Brook, Ill.-based fast-food company, which has been trying unsuccessfully for years to develop a dinner menu to pump up evening sales at its outlets.
Crain's Chicago Business, citing unnamed sources, said that the new chain would be called Hearth Express.
Hearth Express is a "test concept," McDonald's spokesman Chuck Ebeling said. He declined further comment.
Crain's said McDonald's will open the first two Hearth Express restaurants as early as this summer in the Chicago area. The restaurants will cater to families looking for dinners at prices averaging about $5 per person.
The concept is similar to that of Boston Chicken, a fast-growing chain that specializes in rotisserie-roasted chicken and home-style side dishes, said Sharon Olson, president of the Olson Group Inc., a Chicago-based foodservice consulting firm.
She said Hearth Express would face intense competition from Boston Chicken, as well as other existing family restaurants.
"There is only so much growth you can get out of the mature U.S. market," she pointed out. "Most companies are looking overseas for growth."
Message hits home-Americans eating less fat
Americans are getting the message to eat less fat, but there's still plenty to trim from the national diet, according to a federal nutritionist.
The average proportion of fat in the diet dropped from 36 percent of total calories in 1978 to 34 percent in 1990, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We're on our way; we're making improvements," said Mary McDowell, a nutritionist with the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, who wrote the report.
But she pointed out that 34 percent is still higher than 30 percent, the level federal health officials say will lead to a healthier life. High proportions of fat have been linked to increased risk for obesity, heart disease and certain types of cancer.
The figures came from the 1988-91 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a look at 14,801 people aged 2 months and older.
It showed the average proportion of calories from saturated fat dropped 1 percentage point to 12 percent and cholesterol levels dropped from 213 to 205.
"The decline in the proportion of saturated fat and total fat consumed is good news for America's heart health," said Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which helped fund the survey.
Armour names two to processed meat division
J. Douglas Esson has been named president of Downers Grove, Ill.-based Armour Swift-Eckrich Processed Meats Co.
Esson most recently was executive vice president of ConAgra Meat Products Cos. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of Seitz Foods Inc., a division of Sara Lee Corp.
Armour also named Paul Brandon executive vice president of sales and marketing for their processed meats division.
Brandon was most recently vice president of sales and marketing for BilMar Corp. He also worked for Bryan Foods Corp.
Packerland makes 3 moves
Green Bay, Wis.-based Packerland Packing Co. has announced the following personnel moves:
-- William J. T. Prescott has been promoted to vice president of administration. He will be responsible for purchasing, scheduling, business analysis and capital expenditures.
-- Douglas E. Spivey has been promoted to vice president of sales and marketing. He will be responsible for domestic and international sales with emphasis on value-added products.
-- David B. DuPont has been promoted to vice president of risk management. He will oversee live cattle contracting, futures trading and managing risks on contracts listed with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Hormel shifts executive
Thomas R. Day, who has been involved in foodservice sales and marketing for most of his 13-year career, has been named director of foodservice sales and marketing for Dubuque Foods Inc.
He will oversee a sales force of regional and district sales managers and food brokers who sell numerous fresh and processed meat products marketed under the Dubuque and Dubuque Supreme brand names to foodservice operations.
Day had been foodservice regional sales manager for Austin, Minn.-based Hormel Foods Corp. Prior to that, Day had served as Hormel's corporate national accounts manager.
Dubuque, Iowa-based Dubuque Foods Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hormel.
USDA reorganization bills pick up steam in Congress
A Senate subcommittee has OK'd a bill that would reorganize USDA, which includes the creation of a position of assistant secretary for food safety. The bill is awaiting a vote by the full Senate.
Under the bill, the assistant secretary for food safety would implement laws under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Poultry Product Inspection Act, as well as other responsibilities so deemed by the USDA secretary.
A House version of the bill, sponsored by Rep. Kika de la Garza (D-Texas), would create an undersecretary position with responsibilities for food safety, performing all food safety functions under USDA's jurisdiction.
Under an amendment to the House bill submitted by Rep. Charles Stenholm (D-Texas), any function within USDA relating to food safety would be kept separate from marketing and promotion functions to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The House bill must be approved by both the House Agriculture Committee and the full House. Any differences between the House and Senate bills must be worked out in conference and voted on by both chambers of Congress.
Sara Lee enters into
joint venture in Mexico
Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp. has formed a joint venture with AXA S.A. of Mexico to expand the business of an AXA subsidiary that makes processed meat products.
The deal calls for Sara Lee to invest an undisclosed amount of money in Kir Alimentos S.A., the second largest manufacturer of hot dogs, lunch meat, sausages and hams in Mexico.
Kir will distribute Sara Lee processed meat products-under Ball Park, Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm brand names-in Mexico.
Scientists forge another possible meat consumption, prostate cancer connection
Researchers have forged another tentative link in a theory implicating meat fat with prostate cancer, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Men who ate beef, pork, or lamb as a main dish five to six times a week were 2.5 times more likely to have prostate cancer than men who ate such red meats less than once a week, the latest analysis of a long-running study of 22,000 male physicians showed.
The same analysis found that men with high blood levels of alpha-linolenic acid, a fatty acid that researchers say comes from meat, ran two to three times the risk of developing prostate cancer as men with low blood levels of the acid.
The Physicians' Health Study was not designed to prove or disprove that eating meat causes or aggravates prostate cancer. Reporting their findings in the Journal of National Cancer Institute, the scientists stressed, "We emphasize that the results should be viewed as tentative and preliminary."
While the study was disputed by a meat industry nutritionist, it was the second study within seven months that linked meat consumption to prostate cancer.
A study released in October reported that men who ate the most meat were 2.6 times more likely to develop advanced prostate cancer than men who ate the least amount of meat.
The two studies were conducted by different research teams, both associated with the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
"We are baffled," Eric Hentges, director of nutrition research for the National Live Stock and Meat Board, told the Journal. He noted that both studies emphasized a link between prostate cancer and the levels of linolenic fatty acid in blood of the men.
Linolenic acid is also a component of vegetable oils, Hentges pointed out. "The levels of linolenic acid in soybean oil is seven times higher than in meat," he added.
Yet, neither study looked into the relationship between consuming vegetable oils and prostate cancer. "How they can make a meat story out of this is beyond me; it is really a linolenic acid story," Hentges argued.
The Harvard scientists who carried out the study of the physicians did suggest that the alpha-linolenic acid levels may be the key to the link between diet and prostate cancer.
They noted that the risk of prostate cancer in the physicians seemed to jump when levels of alpha-linolenic acid in the blood topped a certain threshold.
This suggests that lowering linolenic acid levels below a certain threshold "could result in favorable effects on prostate cancer risk," according to the scientists.
Safe handling labels back
For the second time in a year, USDA has ordered that all raw meat and poultry products carry safe handling labels. Under the new format, the industry has until May 21 to attach the labels to ground meat products, and until July 6 to attach labels to all other raw meat products.
Under expedited procedures, USDA originally wanted the labels on all ground meat products by last Oct. 15. However, a federal judge blocked implementation after several groups filed a lawsuit, saying the agency had no basis to speed up the regulatory process.
Bruce Gates, vice president of the National American Wholesale Grocers Association-one of the groups that filed the lawsuit-said the new time format "appears to be much more reasonable."
The new label will essentially carry the same message as last year's label. One of the changes is a graphic showing a pair of hands washing beneath a faucet, which replaces a sudsy bar of soap.
The information must be presented wherever it is "likely to be read and understood," according to the Federal Register. But USDA said the labels can appear on the outside bottom of the plastic trays in which most meat is sold.
Jens Knutson, AMI director of economic research, said retailers would feel the hardest financial hit. He estimates the cost for retailers to buy and apply labels to be at least $500 million each year. In addition, meat processors would have to apply labels for packages sold at restaurants.