Beef Products, Inc.
| Private | |
| Industry | Meat processing |
| Founded | 1981 in Amarillo, Texas |
| Founders | Eldon Roth Regina Roth |
| Headquarters | Dakota Dunes, South Dakota |
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Key people
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Eldon Roth, CEO |
| Website | www |
Beef Products Inc. (BPI) is an American meat processing company based in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota. Prior to high media visibility of its products, it was a major supplier to fast food chains, groceries and school lunch programs. It had three additional plants, which closed in 2012. Along with all of this, E.coli epidemics have increased in recent times nationwide with two outbreaks this summer with strains of salmonella in hamburger that heightened huge production of ground beef across many states.
Beef Products Inc. was established in 1981 by its current CEO Eldon Roth.
In 2007, after the USDA reviewed BPI's processing technique, the company was exempted from routine testing of hamburger meat.
In July 2011, after widespread coverage of an unrelated E. coli outbreak in Germany linked to sprouts, Beef Products Inc. began voluntarily testing its beef products for six additional strains of E. coli contamination because the FDA had not taken any formal actions for increased safety actions. The testing began at one of its plants, with a planned expansion to the rest of its US plants when the test kit manufacturer could increase its production to meet the demand.
The USDA announced on March 15, 2012 that they would propose more selections to schools in the National School Lunch Program when it comes to buying ground beef products. The USDA only buys products that are “safe, nutritious and affordable” for the school lunch program. It is said that by law the USDA has two major obligations as part of its order to provide safe and healthy food to the American citizens.In 2009, the New York Times reported that as early as 2003, school lunch officials and other customers had complained that the product tasted and smelled like ammonia, after which the company devised a plan to make a less alkaline version. Later on, the USDA determined that at least some of BPI's product was no longer receiving "the full lethality treatment," and the newspaper reported that BPI's products had tested positive for E. coli three times and salmonella 48 times since 2005. This prompted the USDA to revoke the exemption and review the company's practices. In 2012, after a series of ABC News reports, concern amongst the public led McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wal-Mart, Safeway, and several other grocery stores to abandon the product. Company officials suspended production at three of its four plants. The United States Department of Agriculture issued a statement supporting the product's safety, and the company launched a public relations offensive with the help of governors Rick Perry, Terry Branstad, and Sam Brownback, who joined ABC News on a tour of the remaining plant. For example, McDonald’s, and Burger King with many others. Due to a high amount of possibly fatal E. coli from hamburgers, this commercial company came up with the idea of injecting beef with ammonia to kill E.coli. In the United States Department of Agriculture, the officials permitted the company’s idea, and claimed that it kills E.coli “to an undetectable level. Beef Products Inc. closed its facilities in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo, Iowa on 25 May 2012. On 13 September 2012, the company announced it would be suing ABC News for $1.2 billion in a defamation lawsuit.
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