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XL Foods Inc. is a Canadian meat packing company. The company is a subsidiary of Nilsson Brothers Inc. based in Edmonton, Alberta. From 2009 until 2013, XL Foods' Lakeside Packers Division was located just west of Brooks, Alberta, in Newell County. This facility was the second largest beef-processing operation in Canada. [1] During this period the company was by far the largest employer in Brooks, employing more than 2,200 people in 2012. [2]
XL Foods grew from a collection of ranches, feedlots and feed mills into one of the foremost Canadian-owned and operated beef processors in Western Canada. Nilsson Bros. reached an agreement to purchase the core beef assets, along with the company name, on November 22, 1998. In 2009, XL Foods bought Lakeside Packers from its U.S. parent company Tyson Foods, [3] following a bitter strike at Lakeside that lasted through most of 2005 after the workers joined the United Food and Commercial Workers labour union.
XL Foods was temporarily closed on September 27, 2012, by order of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) due to Escherichia coli O157:H7 being discovered in processed meat originating from the plant. The plant was testing incorrectly for E. coli in meat, so the testing procedures were made more stringent. The plant was processing between 2000 and 5000 cattle per day, [4] [5] representing approximately one-third of Canada's 2012 beef slaughtering capacity. [6]
According to American regulators and the CFIA, testing practices in place at the plant were not stringent enough to protect consumers from the E. coli contamination. [7] The incident was also linked to increased production at the plant during the time when the E. coli was detected.
A total of 18 confirmed cases of infection with E. coli O157:H7 were reported during the subsequent outbreak linked to XL Foods. [8]
On October 18, 2012, it was announced that the XL Lakeside plant was to be taken over by JBS USA for 60 days with "an exclusive option to buy the Canadian and U.S. operations of XL Foods". [9]
With the XL Foods recall, some experts like Sylvain Charlebois claimed that the XL Foods incident is an example of how a dysfunctional food safety culture can affect an organization. [10]
The Brooks plant was sold to JBS Canada on January 14, 2013. [11]
Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle. Beef can be prepared in various ways; cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often ground or minced, as found in most hamburgers. Beef contains protein, iron, and vitamin B12. Along with other kinds of red meat, high consumption is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and coronary heart disease, especially when processed. Beef has a high environmental impact, being a primary driver of deforestation with the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any agricultural product.
Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a serotype of the bacterial species Escherichia coli and is one of the Shiga-like toxin–producing types of E. coli. It is a cause of disease, typically foodborne illness, through consumption of contaminated and raw food, including raw milk and undercooked ground beef. Infection with this type of pathogenic bacteria may lead to hemorrhagic diarrhea, and to kidney failure; these have been reported to cause the deaths of children younger than five years of age, of elderly patients, and of patients whose immune systems are otherwise compromised.
Cargill, Incorporated, is an American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held company in the United States in terms of revenue.
There are different systems of feeding cattle in animal husbandry. For pastured animals, grass is usually the forage that composes the majority of their diet. In turn, this grass-fed approach is known for producing meat with distinct flavor profiles. Cattle reared in feedlots are fed hay supplemented with grain, soy and other ingredients to increase the energy density of the feed. The debate is whether cattle should be raised on fodder primarily composed of grass or a concentrate. The issue is complicated by the political interests and confusion between labels such as "free range", "organic", or "natural". Cattle raised on a primarily foraged diet are termed grass-fed or pasture-raised; for example meat or milk may be called grass-fed beef or pasture-raised dairy. The term "pasture-raised" can lead to confusion with the term "free range", which does not describe exactly what the animals eat.
Brooks is a city in southeast Alberta, Canada in the County of Newell. It is on Highway 1 and the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway, approximately 186 km (116 mi) southeast of Calgary, and 110 km (68 mi) northwest of Medicine Hat. The city has an elevation of 760 m (2,490 ft).
Lakeside Packers is a beef producer based in Brooks, Alberta. It is owned by JBS Canada, a subsidiary of JBS S.A., a Brazilian protein company.
Coliform bacteria are defined as either motile or non-motile Gram-negative non-spore forming bacilli that possess β-galactosidase to produce acids and gases under their optimal growth temperature of 35–37 °C. They can be aerobes or facultative aerobes, and are a commonly used indicator of low sanitary quality of foods, milk, and water. Coliforms can be found in the aquatic environment, in soil and on vegetation; they are universally present in large numbers in the feces of warm-blooded animals as they are known to inhabit the gastrointestinal system. While coliform bacteria are not normally causes of serious illness, they are easy to culture, and their presence is used to infer that other pathogenic organisms of fecal origin may be present in a sample, or that said sample is not safe to consume. Such pathogens include disease-causing bacteria, viruses, or protozoa and many multicellular parasites. Every drinking water source must be tested for the presence of these total coliform bacteria.
Gerry Ritz is a former Canadian politician. He served as member of the House of Commons of Canada for Battlefords—Lloydminster from 1997 until his resignation in 2017. He served as Canada's agriculture minister from 2007 through 2015 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
JBS USA Holdings, Inc. is a meat processing company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian multinational JBS S.A. The subsidiary was created when JBS entered the U.S. market in 2007 with its purchase of Swift & Company.
The American Meat Institute (AMI) was the oldest and largest trade association representing the U.S. meat and poultry industry. In 2015, it was merged into the North American Meat Institute (NAMI).
The 2006 North American E. coli outbreak was an Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak from prepackaged spinach. The outbreak occurred in September 2006, and its origin was an Angus cattle ranch that had leased land to a spinach grower. At least 276 consumer illnesses and 3 deaths have been attributed as a result from the outbreak.
Cargill Meat Solutions is a subsidiary of the Minneapolis-based multinational agribusiness giant Cargill Inc, that comprises Cargill's North American beef, turkey, food service and food distribution businesses. Cargill Meat Solutions' corporate office is located in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Jody Horner is the division's president.
Topps Meat Company was a privately owned family company founded in 1940 by Benjamin Sachs in Manhattan, New York. The company later relocated to Elizabeth, New Jersey. The company produced and distributed frozen ground beef patties and other meat products processed at its 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) plant in Elizabeth and posted about $8.8 million a year in sales, according to information reported by Dun & Bradstreet. In 2003, the company was purchased by Strategic Investment and Holdings, an investment firm based in Buffalo, New York and by 2007 it was "one of the country’s largest manufacturers of frozen hamburgers." In 2007 the company ceased operations following Escherichia coli O157:H7 contamination of products and the ensuing recall.
JBS S.A. is a Brazilian company that is the largest meat processing enterprise in the world, producing factory processed beef, chicken, salmon, pork, and also selling by-products from the processing of these meats. It is headquartered in São Paulo. It was founded in 1953 in Anápolis, Goiás.
Raw meat generally refers to any type of uncooked muscle tissue of an animal used for food. In the meat production industry, the term ‘meat’ refers specifically to mammalian flesh, while the words ‘poultry’ and ‘seafood’ are used to differentiate between the tissue of birds and aquatic creatures.
Escherichia coli is a gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms (endotherms). Most E. coli strains are harmless, but pathogenic varieties cause serious food poisoning, septic shock, meningitis, or urinary tract infections in humans. Unlike normal flora E. coli, the pathogenic varieties produce toxins and other virulence factors that enable them to reside in parts of the body normally not inhabited by E. coli, and to damage host cells. These pathogenic traits are encoded by virulence genes carried only by the pathogens.
The 1992–1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak occurred when the Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacterium killed four children and infected 732 people across four US states. The outbreak involved 73 Jack in the Box restaurants in California, Idaho, Washington, and Nevada, and has been described as "far and away the most infamous food poison outbreak in contemporary history." The majority of the affected were under 10 years old. Four children died and 178 others were left with permanent injury including kidney and brain damage.
The meat industry has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Outbreaks of the virus took place in factories operated by the meat packing industry and the poultry processing industry. These outbreaks affected dozens of plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posed a significant threat to the meat supply in the United States. The damage the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the meatpacking industry was unexpected and resulted in a sharp reduction of meat processing and capacity reduction of meatpacking companies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, outbreaks of the virus took place in factories operated by the meat packing industry and the poultry processing industry. These outbreaks affected multiple plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posing a threat to the food supply in Canada.
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