Current Cattle Markets Daily Headlines for Monday, August 3, 2020

Mackenzie Johnston

6 years ago

Groups want FTC investigation of Tyson

Two non-profit groups, Food and Water Watch and workers’ rights group Venceremos, are asking the Federal Trade commission to investigate Tyson Foods’ public representations about its labor practices.
- The two groups claim that Tyson has made “false and misleading” depictions on its website, social media and company reports.
The groups have asked the FTC to require Tyson to remove misleading claims.
- According to the complaint, one of the misleading claims states that the company provides safe workplaces and sources chicken from independent family farms.
Consumers are becoming more aware of how their food is produced and the ethical treatment of workers within food production, and companies like Tyson have taken note, said the complaint.
Tyson is now working to capitalize on consumer values by making deceptive claims about the treatment of their workers and the fair treatment of their contract poultry growers.
- Tyson advertises that it provides a safe workplace for workers and sources chicken from independent family farms. Both of which are misleading to consumers, said the complaint.

JBS Food Canada has recalled approximately 38,406 lbs. of beef products because they were not presented for import re-inspection into the U.S.
According to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), these products arrived as boneless beef head meat and were imported on July 13^th.
- Another company then further processed this beef into ground beef products.
So far, there has been no reported illnesses or adverse effects in connection with this recall; nonetheless, FSIS has designated these items as having a high health risk.
This recall comes on the heels of a similar recall by Jamaican Tastee Patties, LLC that recalled 60,000 lbs. of meat and poultry patty products.
- These products were repackaged, relabeled and redistributed without being federally inspected. A mark of inspection by another federal establishment was added to these products without proper approval.

Last week, the United Nations tweeted to its 12.7 million followers to “act now” and “eat less meat” because it claimed, “the meat industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the world’s biggest oil companies.”
Cattle industry groups responded with outrage and Australia’s Federal Agriculture Minister labeled the tweet as disgraceful.
Not long after the tweet was posted, the UN removed the content.
Travis Tobin, CEO of Cattle Council of Australia, feels that the UN needs to take it upon themselves and explain why the tweet was inaccurate.