American Meat Institute

One of the nation's largest meat processors, IBP Inc., on Wednesday said it agreed to buy Hudson Foods Inc.'s state-of-the-art beef-processing plant in Columbus, Neb., the focus of a recent massive recall of ground beef linked to possible E. coli contamination. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Since the recall, meatpacking trade groups are pushing the industry to change hamburger-processing methods and abandon the common practice of mixing in one day's leftovers with the next day's supply.

Ask Missourians what California is famous for and chances are they'll say hickory-smoked, sugar-cured, country hams--not Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge, sunshine and beaches or Yosemite. That's because California, a small town in the heart of the "Show Me" state, is home of one of the biggest country ham processing plants in the nation. At the south end of this sleepy little farm center, is Burgers' Ozark County Cured Hams.

A plan proposed by President Clinton on Saturday would require meat-product companies to test their factories for the deadly Listeria bacterium in an effort to cut the number of illnesses and deaths it causes in half by 2005. Listeria sickens about 2,000 people a year, about the same as the E. coli bacterium. But Listeria results in death in about 25% of cases, as opposed to about 5% for E. coli.

South Korea has agreed to make key changes in its regulations governing U.S. meat imports, hopefully ending a contentious trade flap between the two nations that began last year over hot dogs. If Seoul now follows through with the agreement, which was reportedly reached in meetings within the past week, it would squash a potential high-level U.S.-South Korea confrontation at the new World Trade Organization. The U.S. meat industry has charged that South Korea unfairly restricts its markets to U.

A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease. Creekstone Farms wants to look for the disease in every animal it processes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said no. Creekstone says it intends to sue the department. "Our customers, particularly our Asian customers, have requested it over and over again," Chief Executive John Stewart said Wednesday.

Coming soon to a grocery store near you: nutrition labels, like the ones seen on soda pop and potato chips, slapped on packages of raw ground meat and chicken breasts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that a new federal rule will require 40 of the most commonly purchased cuts of poultry, pork, beef and lamb to carry labels that disclose a variety of information to consumers. Slated to go into effect Jan. 1, 2012, the rule will require meat producers to disclose the total number of calories, the number of calories that come from fat, and the total grams of fat and saturated fat. The labels also must include details about protein, cholesterol, sodium and vitamins in the product, according to federal officials.

The beef industry's stampede to introduce low-fat products gained further momentum with the recent debut of SmartMeat, the result of four years of research and millions of dollars in product development. The trademarked process, engineered by Minneapolis-based GFI America, is possibly the most technologically advanced method to enter the lucrative lean-beef sweepstakes.

The Labor Department Thursday took a first step toward extending federal regulation of workplace safety to the world of ergonomics in an effort to stem repetitive-motion injuries. At a press conference here, Labor Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole unveiled a set of "voluntary" guidelines for guarding against such injuries in the meatpacking industry, an estimated 30% of whose workers are hurt annually.

Slaughterhouse workers watch every move of federal inspectors. They know when they take bathroom breaks. They use the radio to alert one another to the inspector's every step. They even assign the pretty talkative woman to work next to the inspector to distract him from his mission to safeguard the nation's food supply. That cat-and-mouse game is portrayed by past and current inspectors, lawmakers and an audit report that say the U.S.

If you want to get rid of a pest, why not use a littler pest to plague it? That's the tack OKd last week by the Food and Drug Administration, which has for the first time approved the use of bacteria-eating viruses as an additive to foods. From now on, these viruses -- known as bacteriophage or phage -- can be sprayed on ready-to-eat cold cuts and luncheon meats by manufacturers to prevent listeriosis, the most deadly of all food-borne illnesses in this country.