Central Valley Meat, which was ordered to suspend operations for one week in August after a video showing animal cruelty at its slaughterhouse went viral, has been re-approved for participation in the school lunch program. While experts agree that there was animal cruelty at the slaughterhouse, inspectors from the U.S. Agriculture Department’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) concluded that no food safety violations occurred. Central Valley was quietly readmitted to the school lunch program at the end of August.
In the memo, FSIS also states that it “concluded its evaluation of the extensive corrective action plan submitted by Central Valley Meat Company to correct recent humane handling violations and has permitted Central Valley Meat to resume processing. As a result, the company will resume packing and shipping existing meat orders purchased by USDA for the National School Lunch Program.” The $11 billion program, which operates in more than 100,000 schools nationwide, fed 32 million kids per day in 2011.
After it was cleared to resume operations, Central Valley released a statement saying it would provide better training for its workers, better monitoring of its facilities, and more frequent third-party audits of its operations. “We believe these measures will establish a new industry standard for the handling of animals.”
McDonalds, In-N-Out Burger and Costco which all announced that they would suspend purchases from the Central Valley after the video went public, have not stated if they will now resume doinf business with the company.
