March 12, 2008, to be exact; the date I had to testify about the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company recall and HSUS humane handling videos in front of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.

No, I am not going to pen a piece about me or the WHMC story, that will appear in much more detail in a book Sayer and I have penned.

Today is about another witness called to the hearing named Daniel (Danny) Wegman, CEO and President of Wegman’s, a high-end, family owned grocery business with 90 stores in 6 Northeastern states, including in my old neighborhood when I lived in Virginia.

Mr. Wegman told his story about Wegman’s experience with irradiated ground beef and I thought readers might enjoy his insights and some facts.

One of their steady customers came down with E coli O157:H7. The Wegman’s ground beef in the refrigerator tested negative, but the corporation decided to get a lot more serious about food safety.

First they started handing out a free meat thermometer to everyone who purchased their ground beef and told them why and how to use it. They are NOT your average grocer.

Then, in May of 2002, they started selling irradiated ground beef that had already tested negative for E coli and had a massive campaign touting the benefits of ground beef that they considered to be sterile.

While the product cost 10-20 cents more than traditional ground beef, they saw sales climbing to a high of 10 percent of ground beef sold in their stores when the SureBeam company went bankrupt in 2004.

Customers begged Wegman’s to find another place to irradiate their ground beef, and they did, and began selling the product again in August of 2006.

But the new plant involved more transportation costs, etc., and the price of the product now was 40 cents higher than the traditional ground beef and sales, at the time of the hearing, were only 1 percent of all ground beef sales and Wegman’s no longer pushed for higher sales volumes.

Danny Wegman expressed some dissatisfaction with the USDA and its policies regarding irradiated ground beef.

First of all, they advised Wegman’s they must still say all ground beef has to be cooked to 160 degrees to be safe. Why pay 40 cents more per pound if the USDA won’t recognize the product as being safe?

Secondly, the USDA told SureBeam they could not say the product had been pasteurized, but instead must say it had been irradiated and put the Radura symbol on the package.

Mr. Wegman used eggs as an example of common sense. Eggs are “pasteurized” if they are going to be used in raw products such as egg nog or Caesar’s Salad Dressing.

What is the difference between pasteurizing eggs and pasteurizing ground beef you may be asking yourself?

My answer is that it is the difference between the FDA (eggs) and the USDA (ground beef).

Just seeing egg nog in print this holiday season has made me thirsty, see ya’ around and have a Happy New Year.

Welcoming 2017 with a look back to 2008

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