Monfort makes Swift change
A company name with a long and storied history in the meat industry is making a comeback.
Monfort Pork Co. changed its name to Swift & Co., effective Sept. 18, reclaiming a 120-year-old identity that company officials hope will merge "traditional values of the past" with "new technologies of the future."
"We felt compelled to establish our own identify, so we chose a name that for more than a century has been on the leading edge of innovation in the pork industry," said Donald Slotkin, Swift & Co. president. "We intend to retain that position."
Downers Grove, Ill.-based Armour Swift-Eckrich Processed Meat Cos. will continue to market the Swift brand of processed meat products.
Swift & Co., based in Greeley, Colo., has more than 4,500 employees and processes more than 10 million hogs a year at plants in Worthington, Minn., Marshalltown, Iowa, and Louisville, Ky.
When new organization begins, NLS&MB will cease to exist
On Feb. 1, 1996, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) will come into existence while the National Live Stock and Meat Board will be terminated.
That is the result of the latest action concerning a proposed beef industry organization merger.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association is the new name of the beef organization that will form as a result of the consolidation of NLS&MB and the National Cattlemen's Association.
The new group will incorporate many aspects of NLS&MB's Beef Industry Council through a joint operating agreement.
The transition executive committee, which includes NLS&MB and NCA executive committee members, as well as representatives of the Beef Board, U.S. Meat Export Federation and American National CattleWomen, will oversee the transition to the new organization. John Lacey, former NCA president, and Jim Webb, former Beef Board chairman, will co-chair the transition.
Regular elections will take place during the group's first stockholders' congress, scheduled for Jan. 30, 1996.
Meanwhile, the National Live Stock and Meat Board, a presence since 1922, will end. The 95-employee organization has been involved in promotional programs on behalf of red meat items. The National Cattlemen's Association name will also be dropped.
USDA files complaint alleging IBP suppression of competition
USDA has filed a complaint accusing Dakota City, Neb.-based IBP inc. of stifling competition for cattle supplies by giving undue preference to a cartel of Kansas cattle feedlots.
The complaint follows speeches and statements by USDA Secretary Dan Glickman about the growing concentration in the meat industry.
IBP gave undue preference to a group of seven Kansas feedlots-known as the Beef Marketing Group-by guaranteeing them high contract prices for their cattle, according to the complaint. Other suppliers asked for the same terms but were allegedly denied them, USDA said. The arrangement began in February 1994, the complaint stated.
The Packers and Stockyards Act is supposed to guarantee equal treatment for all feedlots.
IBP said its marketing arrangements are "perfectly legal."
Jarold Callahan, executive director of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, said meatpacking capacity has been concentrated in an increasingly smaller number of major firms in recent years. About 85 percent of the nation's weekly beef slaughter is done by four major companies-IBP, Monfort Inc., Excel Corp. and National Beef Packing Co.
A USDA official told Meat Marketing & Technology the case, which will be heard by an administrative judge, will not be resolved until early 1996.
E. coli traced to supermarket chain in upstate New York
Officials have traced an outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 in upstate New York to chopped sirloin and lean ground beef.
Eleven cases of E. coli-related illnesses have been traced back to four different Grand Union supermarkets in the Hudson Valley, near Poughkeepsie, N.Y. There have been no deaths in the outbreak.
The New York State Health Department studied 12 cases of E. coli reported to it in a two-month period, and determined that the link in 11 of the cases was meat bought from the four Grand Union stores.
"The cases themselves are confirmed in the sense that we know that these people have E. coli 0157:H7, the same stuff that killed [the children] in Washington," noted Gerald Moore, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Agriculture.
He was referring to the contaminated hamburger meat incident that killed four children-three in Washington-and left hundreds ill on the West Coast nearly three years ago.
State Agriculture Department officials have yet to identify the original source of the beef, said Moore, adding that the operation and sanitation levels of the supermarkets in question apparently had little to do with the illnesses.
"The meat came through their central distribution system, so those stores just happened to be the ones that got it, or where the illnesses were traced back," Moore noted.
A statement issued by Grand Union stated that the supermarket chain had reviewed its procedures to ensure safe, sanitary standards, and said that collected samples by the chain and state agencies had yielded no indication of the presence of E. coli.
More than 100 illnesses attributed to E. coli 0157:H7 have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this year.
Hormel enters joint venture
to sell to Mexican markets
The international division of Austin, Minn.-based Hormel Foods Corp. has formed a joint venture with a Mexican company to market a variety of products in Mexico.
Hormel Alimentos is the new name of the venture between Hormel Foods International Corp. and Mexico City-based Grupo Herdez S.A. de C.V.
The new company will market canned foods including Spam and Spam Lite, Hormel Vienna Sausage, and Hormel deviled ham to retail markets. Refrigerated pork and turkey products, including Black Label and Red Label bacon, Hormel pepperoni, Italian sausage and bacon toppings, will be marketed to foodservice.
Once the joint venture has progressed, Hormel Alimentos plans to expand its mix of Hormel products.
Grupo Herdez is a large Mexican food company. It distributes a number of products, including meat, to about 20,000 accounts across Mexico.
AAMP names new president
Gary R. Crane, owner of Perkins, Okla.-based Ralph's Packing Co., is the new president of the American Association of Meat Processors. Crane assumed the position at AAMP's July convention in San Antonio.
Crane has served on AAMP's board of directors, and was treasurer for the 1994-95 year. The presidency is a one-year term.
Crane was raised in his father's meat business. Ralph's does customer processing and sells to wholesalers. It also has a retail outlet and catering service.
TriFoods CEO Hart resigns
G.J. Hart resigned as president and CEO of Pomfret, Conn.-based TriFoods International, manufacturer of Steak-umm, a sandwich steak. His July resignation came as a surprise, a company spokesman said.
Hart became president and CEO of TriFoods when it was known as Designer Foods in 1991. No permanent replacement has been named.
Hart and TriFoods were profiled in August's Meat Marketing & Technology. TriFoods was using Steak-umm to revitalize the company. Hart was described as a Mississippi gambler willing to take risks.
Fielding leaves Cargill for ConAgra; Cargill realigns
William G. Fielding has resigned as president of Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc.'s Meat Sector, a position he held since 1993. He has taken over as president of ConAgra Red Meat Cos.
As a result of this move and Cargill's recent deal with Tyson Foods Inc. involving hogs and broilers, Cargill has realigned its meat and meat-related activities, and has posted two new assignments.
Gregory Page has been named president of the Red Meat Division, composed of Cargill's worldwide beef and pork operations.
David M. Larson has been named president of the Animal Nutrition and Poultry Division.
Page has been with Cargill since 1974 and most recently was president of the company's worldwide beef operations. Larson has been with Cargill since 1966 and most recently was president of its feed operations.
Page and Larson will report to Warren R. Staley, president of Cargill's Western Hemisphere operations. Staley also becomes head of the company's meat sector.
The management changes, announced Aug. 30, culminated a busy summer for Cargill.
In July, the company sold its broiler operations to Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods Inc. in exchange for a pork processing operation in Marshall, Mo., and an undisclosed amount of money.
Cargill assumed control of the pork plant on Sept. 5.
"Since we reached agreement with Tyson, we have been examining various options for continuing to deliver the quality products and services demanded by our customers," said Ernest S. Micke, Cargill chairman and CEO. "Bill Fielding's decision to move to [ConAgra] gives us an excellent opportunity to make organizational and management changes that will help us accomplish that goal, and maintain our role as an industry leader."
Meanwhile, Fielding, who had been with Cargill since 1969, replaces Dick Monfort as president of Downers Grove, Ill.-based ConAgra Red Meat Cos. Monfort earlier this year became executive vice president of ConAgra Refrigerated Foods Cos.
Fielding is responsible for ConAgra's U.S. and Australian beef businesses, pork business, lamb business, European meat products business, cattle feeding and feedlot management businesses, Mapelli Food Distribution Co., and Young's Specialty Foods Co.
Fielding will report to Lee Lochmann, ConAgra Refrigerated Food's president and chief operating officer.
"Bill Fielding is a well-known and highly respected leader in the U.S. meat industry," Lochmann noted. "He is a welcome addition [to ConAgra]."
Hawaii casts wary eye to federal meat inspection
Hawaii is 3,000 miles away from the nearest FSIS office, and 5,700 miles away from Washington. But for Hawaiian meat processors, those distances may as well be a million miles.
Federal meat inspection is coming to the nation's 50th state, but the 60 meat and poultry processors are hardly embracing the idea. They fear the cost to house federal inspectors in plants will be a blow to the industry.
"We have a lot of second- and third-generation businesses in small plants," said Wendy Minor, executive director of the Meat & Poultry Association of Hawaii. "They don't have room for inspectors, and they don't have the money to build an office."
The federal government is expected to take over inspection from Hawaii on Nov. 1. The state is abolishing its program to save $540,000 a year.
When a state inspection program is eliminated, USDA is legally required to assume responsibilities. Because of this, Hawaii Gov. Benjamin Cayetano saw it as a way to cut the program without losing the service.
But Cayetano misses the point, Minor said, which is the cost to individual processors.
Among those costs:
-- Processors will have to spend between $40,000 to $100,000 to build an inspector's office to comply with regulations.
Minor noted that most processing plants are housed in small buildings and would have no choice but to add on to their buildings, a luxury they cannot afford.
"Because many Hawaiian meat processing plants are family-owned, working on short three- or four-year leases, they don't have money to invest on property improvements to meet federal standards," Minor said.
-- Many processors make niche items produced at night so they are fresh and ready to eat the next day.
Minor said she doubts that FSIS will allow many ethnic foods, such as hot pork, a Chinese dish prepared from a freshly killed hog that is not completely chilled at the slaughterhouse before transport. She added that the dish will not conform to USDA's proposed time-temperature standards in its inspection proposal.
And since federal inspectors have to be present during operations, nighttime work will probably be considered overtime. "You cannot add overtime to a bite-sized item," Minor noted.
Paul E. Thompson, acting operations director for FSIS' Western Region, left open the possibility that night inspection could be added without overtime costs. But he stopped well-short of saying this is definite.
"If a plant wants to produce a particular ethnic product in a night-shift situation, it would require an inspector," Thompson said. "We would like to have a night shift available where there would be no extra cost.
"But it depends on many factors," he added. "For instance, if one plant on a remote island wants to operate at night and there is not another night shift near it, we'll have a problem covering that operation at no extra cost."
Minor also fears how Hawaii will be treated under federal inspection since there is such a great distance between it and the mainland. The state would be under the authority of the Long Beach, Calif., area office.
"We get the tail end of everything," she said. "When you do not deal with people on a face-to-face basis, you lose a lot in the transmission."
Thompson is not concerned about the distance. "With modern communication tools available to us, we don't see a real handicap," he stressed. "The one possible exception is the three-hour time difference between Hawaii and the West Coast."