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Date Posted: 01:11:28 05/23/02 Thu
Author: Anonymous
Subject: cont'd
In reply to: 's message, "Scumbag butchers repackage rotten meat" on 01:09:49 05/23/02 Thu

LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
We needed answers. Remember this meat manager at Albertsons in Denver?
Dateline: “So then do you ever change the dates?”
Store employee: “No, it’s against company policy. I’d get fired.” We thought it was time to ask the managers about what we’d found — 16 re-dated packages in his department.
John Larson: “Hi, I’m John Larson. We’re here to ask you about re-wrapping and re-dating meat.”
Store employee: “I don’t know anything about that.”
John Larson: “Can we ask you some questions?”
Store employee: “No you can’t.”
John Larson: “Do you want to see some video on it?” (Door slams)
He was less interested than we had hoped.
Next we tried this Denver Safeway manager. Remember him?
Dateline: “Do you ever like change the date once it’s on there?”
Store employee: “No. We can’t. Oh, no.”
So we caught up with him before work. We told him someone in his department had re-dated 15 pieces of meat.
Store employee: “Who did that?”
John Larson: “That’s what we wanted to ask you about.”
So we showed him our videotape.
John Larson: “For example this is a pork chop.”
Store employee: “Whose store is this at?”
John Larson: “That’s your store.”
We even read him a list.
John Larson: “Beef rib eye four days, beef ribs five days...”
Store employee: “All I can do is tell my guys to do this just like you can tell your crew to do whatever. I mean when I’m not there...”
John Larson: “They can do whatever they want.”
Store employee: “They’re not supposed to do whatever they want.”
Next we tried the meat manager at the A&P in Maplewood, NJ. Remember him?
Dateline: “So you’re not allowed to rewrap or anything?”
Store employee: “No, we have to take it out.”
John Larson: “So how is it in about a week we wind up with 17 examples of where pieces of meat in your department are re-wrapped and days are added to the expiration date. How is that?”
Store employee: (shrugs) “I can’t see it.”
He suggested we talk to his boss, the store manager. So we did... asking about the 17 re-dated piece of meat that we’d found.
John Larson: “Is this store policy?”
Store manager: “No, no, it’s not the policy.
John Larson: “It’s not?”
Store manager: “It’s not.”
John Larson: “Why is it happening?”
Store manager: “It should not be done.”
John Larson: “Meat department employee?”
Meat department employee: “I don’t remember doing that.”
In the end all the meat managers we asked claimed to be totally in the dark.
John Larson: “Do you think that upper management in a lot of these grocery stores has any idea that their meat products are being re-dated, relabeled?”
Ron Schnitzer: “I don’t see how management could possibly not know.”

Microbiologist Ron Schnitzer, who has worked closely with grocery stores in the field, with managers and employees, for 30 years, does not know the managers we spoke with. But he suspects meat managers are not the ones to blame.
Ron Schnitzer: “Someone had to provide that practice to these market managers. It didn’t come from below them.”
John Larson: “Based on your experience do you think management knows about it?”
Rod Preiss: “Oh, definitely, for sure.”
Rod Preiss is a New Jersey State Health Inspector. He says after 25 years of inspecting meat departments, he’s never surprised when a manager feigns ignorance.
John Larson: “So the meat manager must sort of say, ‘Well it wasn’t me?’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, he must be doing it.’ And its one of these (pointing)?”
Rod Preiss: “Exactly, right. They’re finger pointing.”
John Larson: “So if we were able to get to one of these meat managers what do you think he’d tell you?”
Rod Preiss: “I think that he’s under the gun. He has the budget that he has to keep to. And he doesn’t want to lose his job. So he has to do what he has to do to make his department look good.”

THE STORES RESPOND
So we went straight to the top, sending letters to executives of all seven corporations — Winn Dixie, Kroger, Albertson’s, Safeway, A&P, Pathmark and Publix. We sent them lists detailing exactly what pieces of meat we had found, what they cost, how much they weighed, in which of their stores we found them, and on what days. We offered to show them some of our videotape, if they would agree to an interview with us. All seven declined, instead sending one page replies including statements like these:
Kroger — “The allegations raised by Dateline are very troubling... the Company has taken immediate steps to address this issue.”
Safeway — “We take seriously any suggestion that our product dating policy may have been violated and have undertaken our own investigation... ”
Albertsons — “The allegations brought to our attention by NBC Dateline, if true, would violate our policies. We are taking these allegations very seriously...”
Winn Dixie — “We will not tolerate the intentional selling of merchandise after the original sell-by date.”
A&P — (Our) “policy requires the removal from sale of fresh meat, poultry and seafood products upon the expiration of the original ‘sell by’ dates...”
Publix — “an extended date... is against our policy.”
Only Pathmark offered a different explanation. Remember, Pathmark meat workers had told us they never changed the dates.
Dateline: “Can they change the date?”
Store employee: “No. They have to put the same date on it.”
But after reviewing Dateline’s detailed lists, Pathmark told us they do change dates — that Pathmark has a “dual dating policy” but promised all store-cut meat is “removed from sale within 72 hours”.
It’s a bit complicated, but Pathmark says if the meat doesn’t sell, they re-inspect the meat and re-date it. How are you supposed to know if the meat you’re buying has been re-dated? Pathmark admits, you can’t.
But, Dateline learned something else — that Pathmark uses secret codes. A tiny “1” in the lower corner of the label means it’s the first time the meat has been given a sell-by date. Other marks, like letters or these 2’s, mean the meat has been re-dated, and that it may secretly be two days older than other packages with the same sell-by date.
Now if you’re confused by all of this, the double dates and the secret codes — don’t feel bad. Because apparently, so are Pathmark’s meatcutters. When we learned about the secret coding system, we went back and checked the packages which we’d kept in a freezer. Remember they’d all been re-dated. Almost all the packages were marked with “1”s, as if they’d never been re-dated. In other words, Pathmark meat workers got their secret code wrong, at least 36 times.
Pathmark says it’s reexamining its policies, but is sure its meat is safe. All seven companies we’d investigated couldn’t explain why we had found so many re-dated packages of meat in violation of their own policies.
‘Re-dating meat is allowed by the law, according to the 1972 laws of the Department of Agriculture. And it’s a voluntary practice, putting dates on meat.’
— DR. JILL HOLLINGSWORTH
Food Marketing Institute Could anyone explain? One organization did agree to an interview with us, although it would be more difficult than we thought. Remember, Dr. Jill Hollingsworth, who represents the Food Marketing Institute, the trade association representing all the stores we’d investigated? She agreed to sit down to an interview, but only if we agreed to some conditions.
We couldn’t ask her about any specific products or grocery stores, couldn’t show her any documents or videotapes, and no matter how many questions we had, our interview would end after 30 minutes. So, we told her about our investigation: 200 examples of supermarkets breaking their own rules.
John Larson: “How do you think that is? Why is that happening?”
Dr. Jill Hollingsworth: “The dating of product is voluntary. Stores can legally, according to the 1972 Department of Agriculture law, rewrap and re-date meat.” But we weren’t asking about the law. We wanted to know why stores were saying one thing and doing another. So we tried again.
John Larson: “Do you have any idea why so much re-dated meat would be out there?”
Hollingsworth: “Re-dating meat is allowed by the law, according to the 1972 laws of the Department of Agriculture. And it’s a voluntary practice, putting dates on meat.” We tried two more times.
John Larson: “How do you think it’s happening that we found so much?
Hollingsworth: “I think that re-wrapping and re-dating of product is done in stores on a voluntary basis and according to the law.”
We asked again and finally got a different answer.
Hollingsworth: “Let’s say a steak. And they can sell it for four days. They may put that product out there, but date it only for two days. That way, after two days, if it hasn’t sold, they check that product. And if it meets their quality standard, they’ll rewrap it, they’ll date it again for the remaining two days. But still, it never goes beyond the four days. After that they’ll throw it away.”
Dated again? But all the stores, except Pathmark, had been insisting they never do that, and it didn’t explain what we’d found.

In the United States, dating meat is a voluntary practice and in most places re-dating is not against the law. Stores make their own policies, and police themselves.

John Larson: “Doctor, what we found is that it often goes beyond that four days, we found it goes another four days, another seven days, when they rewrap it, they’re not putting the same date on it. They’re adding days. What do you think of that?”
Karen Brown: “Don’t answer that Jill.”
And that’s when a senior vice president sitting off camera decided to cut in.
John Larson: “How can you not answer that?”
Karen Brown: “You’re getting into specifics of research that you collected, and we have an agreement...”
John Larson: “You can’t answer questions about our research?”
Karen Brown: “We have an agreement, she can tell you about industry practices and that’s what she’s told you.”
John Larson: “I’m asking her about industry practices...”
Karen Brown: “No, you’re asking...”
John Larson: “I’m not asking her about specific stores, specific pieces of meat, I’m asking why the heck have we found 200 examples of re-dated meat?”
Karen Brown: “You have 20 minutes left.”
John Larson (to Hollingsworth): “Do you have any idea?”
Hollingsworth: “Ask the question again.”
John Larson: “I mean, could it be rogue employees? Could it be an accident?”
Hollingsworth: “Re-dating meat is a voluntary practice. Putting any date on meat is a voluntary practice...”
A voluntary practice — Dr. Hollingsworth thought it was so important that in our brief interview, she repeated it 22 times.
And she’s right. In the United States, dating meat is a voluntary practice and in most places re-dating is not against the law. Stores make their own policies, and police themselves.
And that, critics say, is exactly the problem. There is no federal law prohibiting supermarkets from secretly changing their own sell-by dates on meat and fish. So who’s looking out for you?

Federal laws

• The federal government has few rules against supermarkets extending the sell-by dates on fresh meat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees livestock -- including poultry, beef, veal, lamb and pork -- has one rule. It covers meat cut in USDA-inspected processing plants, not in supermarkets. Sometimes processing plants cut the meat to be "case ready" for the store -- put in trays, wrapped in plastic, labeled with a price and sell-by date. The meat is then shipped to supermarkets, which place the trays on the shelves in their meat departments. The process means butchers do not cut or package these pieces of meat. Once a USDA-inspected processing plant puts a sell-by date on these "case ready" trays of meat, it is against federal regulations to extend the sell-by date on that piece of meat. The USDA reported knowing of one instance where a store was cited for violating this rule. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversees seafood. It has no rules against re-dating for fish, lobster and crabs. But FDA rules bar re-dating mollusks, like oysters, scallops and mussels.

‘Dateline’ talked to regulators in every state and found 34 states have no laws whatsoever against stores rewrapping and changing their sell-by dates. The rest have some regulations, including Colorado, Texas, and Georgia, three states we visited.

We wanted to talk to the federal government — the USDA — about sell-by dates, food safety, and what we had learned: 200 packages apparently in violation of the companies’ own rules. But the USDA declined an on-camera interview.
It turns out, it’s up to individual states to check whether supermarkets are re-dating meat without telling their customers. New Jersey Health Inspector Rod Preiss says he first discovered re-dated meat in a store back in 1987.
John Larson: “So you caught ‘em.”
Rod Preiss: “We caught ‘em.”
John Larson: “And you wrote ‘em up.”
Rod Preiss: “Well, unfortunately because of the laws in the state of New Jersey, we couldn’t write them up.”
Preiss says he found laws in New Jersey against re-dating milk, but not meat.
Rod Preiss: “We warned them that this was not in the consumer’s best interest. And that’s all we could basically do.”
John Larson: “If we were to hand you the evidence and say, ‘Listen, here’s all the products that we found. They’re re-wrapping it, re-dating it.’ Give it all to you. You’d say, ‘Thank you.’ But there’s nothing you can do about it?”
Rod Preiss: “Nothing we can do without a standardized code, yes, that’s correct.”
New Jersey is not alone. “Dateline” talked to regulators in every state and found 34 states have no laws whatsoever against stores rewrapping and changing their sell-by dates. The rest have some regulations, including Colorado, Texas, and Georgia, three states we visited.
Which made us wonder, how many times over the years had any of those states, where we had found 103 violations in about a month, enforced their own laws? Their best estimate? Not once.
Carl Kruger: “Right now it’s an industry that’s out of control. It’s self-monitored and it’s self-regulated. It’s inherently fraught with danger.”
For the past year, New York State Senator Carl Kruger has been pushing a bill that would make it against the law to re-date fresh meat. He says that’s something the grocery stores in New York, at least publicly, say is already against their own policies.
John Larson: “It sounds pretty much like a no-brainer.”
Carl Kruger: “It’s a no-brainer. My bill is about a half a page long.”
Yet, Kruger says his bill has stalled, the victim, he believes, of a quiet campaign by forces he can’t see.
Carl Kruger: “Good lobbying is that you never see the guy that’s doing the lobbying.”
John Larson: “Yes, well lobbying never happens in the lobby?”
Carl Kruger: “Absolutely not.”
Suzanne Jacobs: “I thought we were home free.”
And he’s not the only one having trouble getting laws passed. Four years ago, former State Representative Suzanne Jacobs tried a similar bill in Florida. She says in no time flat, it went from a sure thing to dead meat.
John Larson: “Do you know exactly who was responsible for squashing your bill?”
Suzanne Jacobs: “Of course I do.”
John Larson: “Which stores?”
Suzanne Jacobs: “The big ones. Publix, Winn Dixie, Albertsons and the Florida Retail Federation.”
That’s a federation representing the major grocery store chains in Florida. The Federation tells us it didn’t like the bill, but has no recollection of lobbying against it.
Carl Kruger: “We shouldn’t be allowing the industry to basically drive the engine. We’re consumers. We should be driving the engine.”
Critics say a sell-by date should be about two things: being safe, and telling the truth. Customers always thought it was.
John Larson: “Do you trust that date?”
Consumer: “I go by it, yes.”
Consumer: “You have to. You don’t really have a choice.”
But now we know that sometimes, what appears to be a promise to America — sell by — those two tiny words on every package you buy, is no promise at all.

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