Canadian meat, poultry plants dirty: U.S. audit

The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 9, 2010

Canadian Food Inspection Agency documents often painted an inaccurate picture of the conditions at some of Canada’s meat and poultry plants where sanitation problems persisted, an American audit has found.

A recently released audit by the United States Department of Agriculture’s inspection service revealed several areas of “systemic concern,” though the report notes the Canadian agency has taken significant steps to correct problems.

The audit, which looked at 23 of the 455 establishments certified to export to the U.S. between August 25 and October 1, 2009, identified weaknesses particularly in the areas of sanitation, oversight and record keeping.

A review of manuals and procedures at the food inspection agency’s administrative offices found acceptable controls for sanitation, but auditors found a different story at some plants.
“The actual conditions of these establishment visits were often not entirely consistent with the corresponding documentation,” the report says.

Among the sanitation issues flagged were: not consistently identifying contaminated product and inconsistently verifying that plants were taking adequate corrective actions to problems. “This audit is from a year ago and in that time our government has invested an additional $75 million to improve food safety and are hiring 170 new inspectors” Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Monday.

The head of the food inspection agency’s meat programs division said Canadian inspectors found similar problems when they visited American meat plants. Richard Arsenault said the U.S. auditors interpreted the requirements differently from Canadian authorities. “Essentially, I think what we had was a situation where the facilities were generally, with very small issues, in full compliance with our requirements,” Arsenault said in an interview Monday. He said the U.S. assessment was that some things were not “appropriate” for a plant eligible for the United States.

The Canadian Press