Day 095 - 02 Mar 95 - Page 11
1 A. All plants are run by federal inspectors. There is not
2 a single plant in the United States that is not.
3 Everything is federally inspected.
4
5 Q. What is the point in replacing the federal inspectors with
6 company inspectors then under the SIS system?
7 A. The stream lined system. The purpose of that is that
8 in the past the intent of the regulation was to correct a
9 problem once you see it. If you see under today's system,
10 if you see carcass that is contaminated, you condemn it,
11 and that is what the inspectors do.
12
13 The new system is designed so that instead of waiting for
14 that to happen, we prevent it from happening. The QA
15 system, or the QA staff, just like myself, I can tell you,
16 I do very little work quality assurance. I do a lot of
17 quality improvement. So, I go back to the source that is
18 causing the problem and fix it there, and I do not wait for
19 that to happen.
20
21 It is a better system in terms that it gives you a better
22 assurance. It is the main concept of the HACCP system. It
23 is economically better because it costs a lot less to fix a
24 problem and prevent it rather than wait to happen and pay
25 for the consequences.
26
27 Q. Where are they fixing the problem? Are you talking about
28 before it gets to the slaughterhouse?
29 A. Everywhere. I will tell you an example. I was last
30 week, the week prior to coming here, I went to see and met
31 with the people from Cargill. They are spending 25 million
32 dollars on a new plant to prevent that because of the zero
33 tolerance.
34
35 Q. But they could have done that without the SIS system, could
36 they not?
37 A. They are doing it because we are requesting them to do
38 it a long time ago. Obviously, 25 million dollars is a
39 large investment. It has to be approved. You have to get
40 a lot of information. You have to develop new technologies
41 which is in this case that is what it is. It is new
42 technologies, you have invest in that. That is the problem
43 with the regulations.
44
45 In the past, if you have a regulation, all you have to do
46 is to meet the regulations. That is what they have been
47 doing for years. We are the ones who are pushing the
48 system to improve and prevent that from happening and
49 forget the regulations. As long as we do that, that is
50 when you see this kind of results. Who else is going to
51 develop a new processing system if it does not have any
52 merits, if it does not improve? That is what happens when
53 you have a regulation.
54
55 In the case, for instance, of Simmons that we talked about
56 yesterday, who is going to develop a new stunning method,
57 if it is regulated, if the exact process is regulated? If
58 something is new out there, which I am sure it is, it
59 cannot be applied, even if it improves the welfare of the
60 animals because it does not meet the regulations. It takes