It is the beginning of April and that marks the beginning of what has been called E. coli season. It seemed like a good time to talk about how we can work toward the goal of eliminating this food safety threat.
If this year is like recent years over the next weeks and months, you will see a number of recalls for E. coli adulterated beef in the news. There will be news specials and finger pointing. However, the dialogue during the recall will undoubtedly be full of hyperbole and offer very little thoughtful discussion of how to fix the problem.
So before the next big news story we would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about what we as cattlemen and animal health professionals think about how we can work together to eliminate E. coli from beef and ultimately the food supply.
On our website, we have outlined five common sense steps.
1. Keep doing the things that are working today to keep beef safe.
The USDA, packers, processors, and retailers have all implemented multiple interventions to prevent beef from being contaminated, kill any bacteria that do contaminate beef, and find any bugs that get by these firewalls. They also spend allot of money to make sure you know how to cook ground beef to an internal temperature of 160 degrees and to use a tip sensitive meat thermometer.
The truth is that most of the time these interventions work pretty well. However, at certain times of the year the system is overwhelmed. The fact that there is a seasonal increase in E. coli tells you that we need to do something before the cattle get to the plant. There simply are not seasons inside a processing plant. That leads us to the next step.
2. Start working on eliminating E. coli from cattle
Now that we have proven tools that address E. coli directly, we can apply these proven interventions in cattle along with the adjunct therapies that have been well documented. More pre harvest interventions are in the development pipeline that will give us more choices in the future. There are also new interventions available for use at the pre harvest / harvest interface that show promise.
Now we can immunize calves with a USDA licensed vaccine that it held to a much higher standard than previous vaccines. When the vaccine was under review by USDA it delayed approval and required a much higher standard of efficacy than it had required of any other vaccines. Because of the work USDA did we can have great confidence that the immunization program will be safe and effective.
3. Transparency and coordination from the pasture to the plate
The VeriPrime Food Safety Cooperative represents the first organization that was created with the express purpose of coordinating food safety protocols by and for cattlemen. A large majority of the fed cattle supply have said yes to working together with the goal of eliminating E. coli from beef.
Since you cannot manage what you cannot trace the members have created a tracking system and are making that data available to you via internet or cell phone. We believe in transparency.
4.Implement principle centered animal health and welfare that not only makes beef safer but also improve tenderness and flavor.
Healthy happy cattle make better tasting more tender beef. Some of the same things that make cattle healthy and happy also help eliminate E. coli and other pathogens.
A few of the things that we do are; make sure our cattle are fed a natural microbial that helps improve digestive health, assure that calves are immunized against respiratory diseases, and use an objective and measurable animal welfare and handling audit.
5. Build Consumer Awareness And Demand
You are the most important part of this process.
Only you have the power to hold us accountable and make sure your grocer or restaurant serves you beef that was raised and handled in a way you can feel good about. Ask your grocer or favorite restaurant to serve you beef that was raised responsibly by VeriPrime producers.
