When I was undersecretary of agriculture for food safety, we were working hard to try and answer questions about avian influenza, aka the bird flu, and to eliminate fears about consuming poultry meat.

At that time, there had been some human deaths in Asia, but all were related to the handling of birds that died from avian Influenza and some odd cultural habits, like drinking the blood from these birds.

Here in the United States, I asked some FSIS folks to get me into a wet market so I could see what the conditions were in U.S. establishments that handled live birds for sale. They did that and added that as long as we were in the neighborhood, we should tour an egg products processing plant and that was arranged.

The Egg Products Inspection Act was passed in 1970 as requested by those in the egg products industry who were trying to do things the right way, but were being undercut by those taking short cuts. The Act mandated daily, continuous inspection of egg products by the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the USDA, so I wanted to see an egg product plant in person and in action.

This was my first egg processing plant I had seen, but it was not my first plant tour. The first chicken slaughter plant I toured made me think of Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with birds flying around near the ceiling. The first beef slaughter plant made me think of a war zone. They were not pretty plants, but they were real, and the owners showed them with pride.

Often when I toured plants our inspection work force told me the facility I was touring was the cleanest that plant would be for years, meaning it got an extra scrubbing in preparation for my visit. But they were all up and running, just like the Super Pollo plant I wrote about last blog.The egg processing plant we were about to enter that day, however, took the concept of pre-visit cleanup to a whole new level.

When we pulled up front in a less than desirable neighborhood we saw three bright red Hummers that looked terribly out of place. We were told they were the owner’s vehicle, his wife’s (who was also the bookkeeper) and the secretary’s. That was the first red flag.

We were let in the locked front door and showed our photo IDs to a young lady behind iron bars and bullet proof glass and then a metal door slid open allowing us to have a seat in a small waiting room.

A second door opened and in walked the owner in a suit I cannot even guess the cost of and wearing more bling than my wife owns. He took us to his office with its walls covered with photos of mayors, governors, city council men, senators, fire and police chiefs and famous athletes. All were inscribed with something like, “To (Mr. X), thanks for all you have done for us, sincerely (Fats, or Tiny, or Louie).” Are you starting to get the picture?

Then we went into the cleanest plant I have ever seen. If you make a living cracking eggs, you would expect to see a drop or two of congealed yolk but none was to be found. Not even a water spot on the floor. Not a smudge on a window or dust on a windowsill. No grease on moving parts, no frayed conveyor belts. I don’t think you get an egg products plant this clean with your normal overnight cleaning crew. It was spotless.

The owner immediately began to apologize that I could not see it in action as when he came to work that morning the electricity was down and amazingly his generator did not work so he sent all the workers home. Coincidence? I seriously doubted it. The electricity was obviously up and running when we got there, but he had not begun production for the day. Very strange ( and costly) indeed.

We had no one but the owner to talk with. Not even the FSIS inspector was on site, but the owner assured us he would have nothing to add because they got along marvelously and he almost never got an NR.

And we did not get to see even one egg.

When I walked into this plant it was surreal, shiny clean and very silent; and it made for basically a wasted day. Slaughter facilities are not pretty, but what about this guy’s egg products plant in action made it so ugly that he did not want us to see it in every day mode?

I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut, deciding not to question a guy who appeared to own all the elected and top level appointed officials in his city while I was still on his turf. We did our investigating after we got back to Washington.

Toward the end of the tour, the owner proudly showed us the cafeteria where workers could eat. There was also a convenience store where they could purchase groceries for dinner and he simply subtracted the cost from their pay check, lowering income, which meant lower FICA taxes for him and lower income taxes for his employees. He bragged about it.

As we exited the plant he pointed out two large buildings across the street, saying they had been plants or warehouses that had shut down.

With the help from some of the men whose pictures were on his office walls, he got city, state and federal dollars to fight urban blight by converting them into apartments, again for his employees with the same financial arrangement.

As he turned to go back to his office, I heard my deputy assistant administrator for field operations humming the tune to the words:

“Saint Peter don’t you call me cause I can’t go; I owe my soul to the company store.”

The cleanest plant (and why)

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