The Tyson pork processing plant in Logansport. Photo by J. Kyle Keener/Pharos-Tribune
by Sarah Einselen
Logansport,IN (Pharos-Tribune) A spate of violations related to humane handling of animals put Tyson Fresh Meats in hot water last year with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, spurring the agency to suspend inspections at the plant several times over the course of 2015 and triggering changes at the Logansport pork processing facility.
Federal inspectors logged 33 violations of U.S. humane handling regulations from Oct. 28, 2014, through the first two months of 2016, according to documents released June 24 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Pharos-Tribune.
Five other violations in 2015 led the USDA to take administrative action against the plant. The agency upped its scrutiny of the plant and four times halted slaughter activity for hours, until USDA officials were satisfied with responses from Tyson plant administrators.
Seventeen of the 33 recorded violations described instances in which hogs were not effectively knocked unconscious at first. Federal regulations require animals to be rendered unconscious and unable to feel pain before the slaughter process begins. USDA records describe instances in which the device used to knock hogs unconscious, a captive bolt stun gun, was improperly used or malfunctioned as it was being used on a hog.
In some cases, violations related to stunning effectiveness were logged twice in a week, or even twice in one day, as on March 24, 2015.
USDA training documents posted to the agency’s website describe a captive bolt stun gun as a device that fires a bolt out of a muzzle using either a charge of gunpowder or compressed air. Two types of captive bolt stun guns are approved for use in USDA-inspected plants — ones that penetrate the animal’s skull and ones that don’t. Violation logs at Tyson’s plant in Logansport describe the use of captive bolt stun guns that penetrate a hog’s skull, knocking the hog unconscious through inflicting physical brain damage and concussion.
REPEATED VIOLATIONS
Earlier in March 2015, federal inspectors had logged two instances within the space of four days in which a captive bolt stun gun malfunctioned. In both cases, the gun used “made an abnormal muffled” sound and the hog started squealing after it was fired. A few days later, it happened again on March 24 — hours after another stun gun had been removed from use for an apparent malfunction.
Six other violation logs detail misuse of prods or other devices used to drive hogs between pens. Four relate to loading or unloading hogs from trucks, and one or two violations each relate to overcrowding in pens, insufficient water or feed, hogs subjected to inclement weather or a hog found showing signs of consciousness after having been “stuck,” the term for cutting the animal’s arteries to drain out its blood.
Five additional violations related to stunning effectiveness led the USDA to suspend its inspections multiple times at the Logansport plant.
Tyson Fresh Meats in Logansport was the only large plant to have five administrative actions taken against it in calendar year 2015. The most another large plant had against it was three, according to quarterly reports published on the USDA’s website.
A spokeswoman for the Animal Welfare Institute, a lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., called the five actions “way over the average.” A Tyson spokeswoman said Friday company officials were unavailable for a response.
Usually, large plants like the one in Logansport are more efficient than their smaller counterparts, AWI spokeswoman Dena Jones said — “the equipment is better, the facility is designed with animal handling in mind.” She added the chances of animals being treated inhumanely are much higher at a smaller plant rather than a large one like Logansport’s.
“The number of incidents here, and the seriousness of the incidents, is unusual,” Jones said. She described stunning mishaps as “the most serious issue” that might occur at a meat processing plant.
SEVERAL SUSPENSIONS
In 2015, after the USDA gave notice in January of the potential for suspension, the agency suspended inspections in February, August, September and October after its inspectors found instances in which hogs hadn’t been properly stunned into unconsciousness.
Those suspensions effectively stopped work in the plant’s slaughter areas because federal law requires inspectors to be on site at all times. Months later, after the company appealed, two of the suspensions were rescinded.
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service regulates more than 6,200 facilities throughout the U.S., according to the agency’s directory of regulated establishments. More than 800 are slaughter facilities. Most are smaller than Tyson’s plant in Logansport, according to the agency’s classification categories.
Through the USDA’s 2015 fiscal year, which runs October through September, agency inspectors observed more than 175,000 violations of all types, both related to humane handling procedures and to other regulations, across the more than 6,200 facilities. That was less than 2 percent of all the procedures its inspectors observed, according to the agency’s quarterly report released near the end of 2015.
Violations led to administrative actions in 347 cases throughout fiscal year 2015, the quarterly report indicated.
The number of administrative actions was unusual for the Logansport plant itself, too. Historically, it’s had far fewer — inspections there were suspended just once from 2010 through 2014, according to USDA quarterly inspection reports. The facility also got one preliminary enforcement notice during that timeframe but inspections were never suspended while that notice was in effect.
Administrative actions don’t come with any official penalties, but since slaughter activity can’t go on while USDA inspections are suspended, the costs indirectly associated with a suspension can soar into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Jones.
ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM
Tyson higher-ups addressed issues with stunning effectiveness during 2015 and early 2016, according to a spokeswoman for the company.
“This led to a review of our processes and procedures in the Logansport plant,” Caroline Ahn wrote in an emailed statement this week. “As a result of this review, we made changes that have shown to be effective.”
USDA inspectors required the plant to make changes in order to get each suspension lifted. In August 2015, the plant retrained its employees on what to look for to identify a hog regaining consciousness, added a second employee to monitor the hogs and planned audits of the stunning and sticking process every hour, according to a USDA letter lifting the suspension.
When the USDA suspended inspections again in September 2015, the plant responded by adding a third employee to monitor consciousness in the hogs after they were supposed to have been stunned, a USDA letter lifting the suspension indicated. Then in October 2015, the USDA suspended inspections again over concerns that the employees responsible for monitoring the hogs weren’t acting when a hog was found looking like it was conscious, a USDA administrator said in a letter formally notifying the plant of the suspension.
After that, Tyson’s plant in Logansport added a fourth monitor to each shift, pledged to check its stunning equipment to make sure it was working correctly and said it would retrain employees again on what hogs look like when they’re regaining consciousness, according to a USDA letter lifting the October 2015 suspension.
The USDA hasn’t suspended inspections at the Logansport plant even once during the last eight months, according to the agency’s website listing of enforcement actions. The USDA ended its heightened scrutiny of the plant on March 7 with a letter of warning, the agency’s most recent quarterly report indicates.