Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Food Chain / Media / Politics / Food & Drink / News
Rick Bayless's Frontera Raided by USDA; Bruce Sherman's North Pond Is Next
Posted by Mike Sula on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:37 PM
Details remain sketchy, but I've heard from several different sources that USDA officials visited Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill/Topolobampo/Xoco complex today and forced workers there to dispose of some amount of meat. They also contacted North Pond chef Bruce Sherman and told him to expect a visit.
What do those two have in common besides being world-class chefs who procure and prepare some of the most ethically and environmentally responsible products available?
Here's what: I happened to mention both in my story about a pair of suburban stay-at-home dads who make and sell bacon and sausage without having proper USDA certification.
Mind you, I didn't say either restaurant was using products cured or smoked by the underground charcutiers, E & P Meats—they don't. I just said they shared a supplier—a farmer who raises his pigs naturally and has them slaughtered by a government-certified processor. There are stamps on the bellies to prove it. Representatives for both restaurants told me the feds raiders said that their action was prompted by the story.
I guess guilt-by-extremely-tenuous-association is enough to take the USDA'sofficials' minds off all those CAFOs and E. coli outbreaks. That's just what I'll have to sleep on till I get the government's side of the story.
UPDATE: Underground charcutiers E&P Meats announced this morning they were voluntarily ceasing operations in response to the USDA's actionsraid. Say they:
"In the next months we promise to work diligently to make our company legally operational. We will keep you informed of any new developments."
Nanny State: 2 Real food: 0
UPDATE: The folks at Frontera just told me the fedsraiders only made them get rid of one box of bacon that was missing its shipping label. They say there will probably be no fine.
UPDATE: Like I said, the details are sketchy. Both restaurants initially told me it was the USDA, but the USDA says it wasn't them. Frontera publicist Jen Fite now tells me the inspector was from the Illinois Department of Agriculture, but a spokesman from there says they don't do restaurant inspections. We're on the case; stand by.
UPDATE, WEDNESDAY, 3:30 PM Publicists from North Pond and Frontera Grill both told me they'd been dealing with the USDA, and it seemed reasonable to believe them and fair to post this news Tuesday night even though it was after hours and I couldn't confirm it with the feds.
But today, Wednesday, Dr. Colleen O'Keefe, Division Manager of Food Safety and Animal Protection for the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said that the inspection was carried out by the state. According to O'Keefe, Frontera Grill was visited by a compliance officer from the state's Bureau of Meat and Poultry Inspection. She said that after reading my charcuterie story they wanted to make sure the meat being dropped off by the Wisconsin farmer (who also supplied E & P Meats) was federally inspected.
“We did find some uninspected product with no mark of inspection on it,” she said. “There was an invoice from a broker in Wisconsin." The total: 80 pounds of bacon and some headcheese, which did have a Wisconsin Ag Dept inspection mark on it but not a USDA one.
O'Keefe says Frontera will have to face a hearing to settle the matter.
But what about North Pond? Will they still be getting a visit from an inspector. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not.”
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Thank goodness the USDA has time to raid small, high-end restaurants. All those factory farms must already be fully compliant.
On the face of it, I can't see any justification for the involvement of federal agents. As long as the meat coming from Wisconsin was processed in a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse, they have no jurisdiction over what a local restaurant does with it.
If they had compliance concerns, why not just pick up the phone? When you just show up with agents to conduct a raid, what we're talking about is harassment and intimidation. As others are saying, it's ridiculous to be going after conscientious, small producers like this, when USDA rules actually allow for widespread contamination of our conventional meat supply.
wow, three harmless businesses and hundreds of jobs slammed by one story. Can't you write about the crooked bankers instead?
USDA inspections exist for a reason - food safety. The busts were unnecessary but pretty routine (I've seen the USDA in action at a bust). It isn't a question of better or worse than CAFOs and big food-produced meats and products (alas, not the USDA's concern) - it is about risk to public health.
It isn't easy to become USDA certified as a meat production facility, and there's a reason for that: sanitation, sanitation, sanitation. One instance of cross-contamination and you've got an outbreak on your hands. An ounce of protection...
If not USDA inspectors and not Illinois Department of Agriculture, what about City of Chicago inspectors? (City of Chicago Department of Public Health Food Protection Division?) It was reportedly the City that made Lula throw out jars of vegetables in a surprise inspection earlier this year.
Hmmm. Let's see. No one knows or admits to being these agents, and a whole box of bacon was "seized." Just follow your nose on this one, Mike!
Keep in mind that "federally inspected" doesn't actually mean an employee of a federal agency inspected the product. It means that the manufacturer/food processor undertook its own inspections according to federal law and self-reported the results.
Division Manager of Food Safety and Animal Protection for the Illinois Department of Agriculture confirms it was them -- so how come a spokesman at the same department had said it wouldn't have been them?
jdunlevy,
Originally an State Ag spokesman said it wasn't them. Then he did a little more digging and produced Dr. O'Keefe
Really? You want "outlaw meats"? You think government oversight of food safety is an example of the "Nanny State"?
I'm glad I don't live in your ideal world.
State Ag authorities much have a lust for pulling stunts like this with their legal authority. If you have the power to inspect and seize, don't play cat-and-mouse with the businesses you're inspecting. It demeans everyone.
Wisconsin just went through something similar with Blue Marble Dairy.
Still, if you want to play loose with food safety regulation, don't be a big whiny baby when you (or someone you like) gets caught. Bitching about a "nanny state" in this case is like complaining about a bull's anger management skills when you've just waved a red flag in front of it.
Jason W wrote:
> Really? You want "outlaw meats"? You think government oversight of food safety is an
> example of the "Nanny State"? I'm glad I don't live in your ideal world.
You're missing the point. There are huge and egregious violations of FDA regulations going on every day at factory farms and feedlots. If an outbreak of e-coli O157:H7 were to really take hold at one of these facilities, it would have a far greater impact than a couple of suburban dads curing meet on the sly. The FDA seems to have its priorities all wrong.
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