Chicken Processing Speeds are at 140 birds per minute
Are you aware that chicken processing, INCLUDING ORGANIC, is allowed to be at 140 birds per minute? That allows 0.43 seconds or 2.5 birds per second for a USDA inspector to inspect that chicken that is on your plate for health, abnormalities, defects and infection.
There have been 3 petitions to increase the speed to 175 bird per MINUTE, so far those petitions have been defeated.
Let us look at this from a health and food safety perspective. Is it possible for a human to inspect a chicken for infection, health, defect and abnormalities in less than half of one second. Of course not.
Why are we concerned about cross contamination ? This was not a concern 60 years ago in this country. We are concerned, because with the reduced time for inspection and the speed of the production line. Bacteria, most of it comes from the intestinal tract of the birds and the production practices used that interrupt the intestinal tract, is spread from fecal matter and that bacteria is spread from bird to bird and machine to machine. The dangerous bacteria is anaerobic bacteria that lives only in the intestinal tract of animals. Those types of bacteria include; Listeria, Salmonella, E-coli. These are the most common and generally accepted as the most dangerous types of bacteria.
Look closely at this picture. What if just one of those chickens has an infection? What if just one of those chickens had its intestinal tract interrupted? The answer, every chicken processed that day is contaminated.
Why is it now our problem ? Why do we have to cook our food to kill bacteria that should NOT be on our food?
There is an alternative. We do NOT have to accept this !!!!!
We, at Open Pasture Meats, hand process our North Carolina chicken. We do 15 per birds per HOUR. We do NOT contaminate our food because we inspect our birds, we do NOT interrupt the intestinal tract because we hand process.