On-Demand Supplier Webinar
Technical / white paper
Yogurt Formulations with Clarinol® CLA for Weight Management
Stepan Lipid Nutrition
Workers at Beef Products Inc. (BPI) have launched a Facebook campaign countering attacks on lean finely textured beef (LFTB), saying they hope information about the safety of the ingredient will go viral – as misinformation did last month.
BPI is the world’s biggest supplier of LFTB, but was forced to close three of its four beef processing facilities after retailers decided to stop buying ground beef containing the ingredient. BPI employed about 1,500 people until an ABC news report sparked a wave of bad publicity about LFTB. The BPI plant closures have put about 650 employees out of work.
Jeremy Jacobsen is an employee at BPI’s corporate office, and co-founder of the Facebook group, People for the Truth , which so far has attracted more than 20,400 members. On Wednesday, Jacobsen and a group of colleagues also launched a Twitter handle, @ppl4truth.
“Until March, I was just a regular employee with a regular job,” he said. “…It was hard for me to watch the news because they were cutting in unrelated footage.”
He said he and his colleagues felt completely frustrated as media outlets repeatedly showed one particular image; a soft sausage of what was being dubbed ‘pink slime’ oozing from a machine.
“It’s not even beef,” he said. “It’s mechanically separated chicken.”
‘Messages aren’t carried the way they used to be’
Tom Cother, a plant employee at BPI and co-founder of the employees’ Facebook page, said that he didn’t realize the scope of the bad publicity surrounding LFTB until he found himself in talks about having to shut down.
“I knew we were getting a beating in the social media…so we started using social media to reach out to impacted groups like producers and industry,” he said. “…This is a perfect example of how industry is going to have to recognize that messages aren’t carried the way they used to be. Social media means that messages are carried so rapidly.”
Critics of the ingredient have raised concerns about its safety, mainly due to treatment with ammonia hydroxide to kill bacteria, although the treatment has been approved for use for decades. Many also find the idea of the ingredient unappetizing, even comparing it to dog food – but the BPI employees are determined to spread the message that LFTB is made from beef trimmings, extracted using heat and a centrifuge. On average, LFTB is about 95% lean beef and is combined with other ground beef for use in products like hamburgers.
Plant employee Travis Derochie, who came up with the initial idea of a social media campaign, said: “The messaging we want to get out is this could happen to anybody.”
Access the employees' Facebook group by clicking here .
7 comments (Comments are now closed)
Agree
I am in agreement with Travis. There is no issue here. Hype is all this is and all this was. It's sad so many people got caught up in the hysteria and didn't take the time to look at the facts that were right in front of their faces this whole time.
Report abuse
Posted by Ana
30 April 2012 | 19h42
Intelligent comments only please
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There is no connective tissue, bones, or guts, in BPI LFTB. The company has gone to great lengths in describing their process and dispelling these social media myths. The sad part is that apparently very few people are willing to get a baseline set of facts before having these so called “strong views”. There will always be a faction of people that believe that the Government is out to get them and can’t be trusted. I get it. (actually I don’t – but you know what I mean). It’s shocking to me the number of people who can’t spend five minutes researching an issue before going off half-cocked in objection to it. We are in serious trouble when people believe bloggers over scientists, facebook over their elected officials, less than reputable sources over proven ones.
Report abuse
Posted by Travis
30 April 2012 | 19h03
Beef is NOT Meat
2 points: 1. Beef is beef (eyeballs,guts,spinal tissue,etc) but IS NOT MEAT...muscle meat.This is a huge difference and why we are angry about this; we thought we were buying 100% ground muscle & fat. 2. This has been a secret conspiracy by the Ag industry & our American govt. to keep the truth from us. Otherwise, label the stuff & allow informed purchasing. Sell your pink slime if you want to but LABEL it so I can skip it. A 20 year lie/conspiracy against the American consumer is the real problem.
Report abuse
Posted by Sue Larkin
27 April 2012 | 17h51
BPI is the victim here...
There is nothing secretive here. The process is clearly described on their website and has been approved for years and has governmental, scientific, and the academic communities backing. I fully understand how some people are skeptical of “big brother” and feel that all of Corporate America is evil and out to destroy the “little guy”. I get it, but It would be nice for once for those who rushed to judgment on this one to admit that they were just plain wrong. Research this company and this process and you plainly see there’s nothing to get excited about. This is a family owned business that has been an innovator in food safety and food processing for years and has the accolades to prove it. It’s just plain sad that this has happened to a company who has spent so much of its own time, money and resources to make our ground beef safer. To vilify them is just plain wrong plain and simple. I’m rooting for you BPI!
Report abuse
Posted by Casey
26 April 2012 | 21h41
Way to go BPI employees!!
I applaude your efforts to educate the public about why this ingredient should not require labeling (it is 100% beef!Improved, leaner beef! Ammonia is naturally in beef! The Ammonia gas extends the shelf-life stability in a more 'natural' way) and how this product actually benefits them (it allows them to buy leaner beef products!)!! People need to stop believing sensational headlines/stories and do their own research (governement/industry statements are full of facts from highly trustworthy and educated people) before reaching conclusions that are unfair, unnecessary, unscientific, unjust....it is so sad and frustrating to see consumers manipulated by the press and activist groups with these false claims and inappropriate imagery!
Report abuse
Posted by Jennifer Guild
26 April 2012 | 18h47
RE: Honesty Please
@Daniel - Ammonium hydroxide is not an ingredient added to the product – rather, the product receives a puff of ammonia to eliminate bacteria safely and effectively. When combined with moisture naturally in beef, ammonium hydroxide is formed, which is a naturally occurring compound found in many foods including baked goods, cheese, chocolate, and puddings, in our own bodies and the environment. It is used in the production of each of these foods as a processing aid and not an ingredient, so not “on the label” of those foods either. Food safety experts and scientists agree it is an effective way to ensure safer ground beef. Scientists, advocates and plaintiff’s lawyers, who in many cases are critical of the beef industry, have all stepped forward to praise Beef Products Inc. (BPI) and its success at food safety.
Report abuse
Posted by Linze
26 April 2012 | 15h25
Honesty Please
Perhaps if the companies who produced this product, along with the companies who add it to their beef, would have been more open and allowed labeling then maybe people would trust them more. The fact that it is washed in ammonium hydroxide and isn't 100% beef makes it clear that it is an ingredient separate from beef that should be labeled. We don't wash all hamburger in ammonium hydroxide, as far as I know. I hate that people may be losing their jobs over this, but by being secretive there was an increase in demand for this product resulting in more people being employed to produce LFTB and now more people to potentially lose a job. Consumer education and knowledge is key here and if these companies really cared about that, they would have given us more information. Now they want to educate us because their profits have been hurt, not because they wanted to be honest.
Report abuse
Posted by Daniel Niehoff
26 April 2012 | 14h29
Read all comments (7)