WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department is suffering from a shortage of inspectors at some of the nation’s meat and poultry plants, a top inspectors’ union official and a food safety group said this week, raising the possibility that contaminated products could reach consumers.
The warning comes just over a week after the agency issued a recall for nearly nine million pounds of beef processed at the Rancho Feeding Corporation in Petaluma, Calif. The department said the meat was shipped to distribution centers and retail establishments nationwide, even though it lacked a full federal inspection. The meat was sent to about 1,000 retailers in Alabama, California, Florida, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.
The inspectors’ union official, Stan Painter, who is the president of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals and a meat inspector in Crossville, Ala., said the lack of inspectors most likely played a role in the recall because workers were stretched thin and did not have the time to properly examine meat.
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