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Pink Slime Maker Files For Bankruptcy: Pink Slips Galore As The Pink Sheets Beckon
In the first of two major bankruptcy stories du jour (the next one coming up shortly), we learn that AFA Foods, best known for being the maker of "pink slime", and a portfolio company of labor unions and Clinton afficionado Ron Burkle and his PE firm Yucaipa, has just filed for bankruptcy. The reason? The sudden public realization what pink slime is, and just how prevalent it is - perhaps it is best to think of it as the Bernie Madoff of the food industry - it was always there, yet it took a wholesale shift in public awareness and consciousness for the firm to realize it would have been prudent to come up with a slightly different name for its ground-beef product. As for whether or not the company is going to the pink sheets, well no. But one thing is certain: the management team is about to get a pink slip.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is among food activists who have criticized the use of what they dubbed “pink slime,” a filler produced by treating finely ground beef scraps with ammonia hydroxide to kill pathogens. Beef Products Inc. last week temporarily suspended production at three plants because of consumer concerns. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said March 28 that the product, referred to in the industry as lean, finely textured beef, is safe to eat.
“Ongoing media attention has called into question the wholesomeness” of the meat, and has “dramatically reduced the demand for all ground beef products,” AFA interim Chief Executive Officer Ron Allen said in court papers.
Ground beef demand will soften in the next several months as consumers shift to meat that doesn’t contain the lean, finely textured beef, said Ann Gurkin, an analyst for Davenport & Co. Last month, the USDA said schools in the government’s lunch program can order ground beef without the product following public pressure to remove it from cafeterias.
It is initially unclear what impact on cattle prices this development will have, as there are major shifts in both supply and demand.
Reduced use of the product will further tighten beef supplies, said Gurkin, a Richmond, Virginia-based analyst who has a “buy” rating on Tyson. U.S. beef production will drop 4.4 percent in 2012 from a year earlier, the USDA forecast March 9.
Given the issue has only come up in the past few weeks, the effect on Tyson’s sales and earnings is unclear, Gurkin said. She said she is “monitoring” it because demand usually rises with the approaching summer grilling season in the U.S.
Among AFA’s largest unsecured creditors listed in court papers are meat suppliers Orleans International Inc., owed $8.3 million, and Tyson Fresh Meats (IBP), owed $3.27 million.
One thing is certain: the company's 850 workers are about to be without a job, which ironically is good - in the BLS' seasonally adjusted lexicon this means a gain in jobs.
AFA has about 850 full-time employees and annual revenue of $958 million, according to the statement. The company obtained a $56 million credit line from GE Capital and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) to carry it through the bankruptcy process.
While one can hope that as a result of this food fiasco Americans will become more self-aware about the color of the slime they ingest, one would be wise to not hold their breath: after all we are talking about America here.

By the way, the caption picture is not of pink slime. It is of the just as appealingly titled "meat slurry", core product of chicken "nuggets."
Guess What’s in The Picture [Foodlike Substance]
A) Strawberry ice cream
B) Chicken
C) Plastic foam
D) None of the above
Answer below
What you need to know:
Folks, this is mechanically separated chicken, an invention of the late 20th century. Someone figured out in the 1960?s that meat processors can eek eke out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, not humans, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. The paste you see in the picture above is the result.
This paste goes on to become the main ingredient in many a hot dog, bologna, chicken nuggets, pepperoni, salami, jerky etc…
The industry calls this method AMR – Advanced Meat Recovery.
In 2004, as a result of mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) ruled that beef could no longer be processed this way, because testing showed that parts of the bovine central nervous system ended up in the meat.
As for products using mechanically separated chicken and pork, FSIS ruled that they are safe to eat, but required them to be labeled as such.
Despite them being safe, FSIS states that no more than 20% of the meat in a hot dog come from mechanically separated pork.
What to do at the supermarket:
It’s always a better to choice to see a real cut of meat at the butcher counter in the supermarket and then decide what you want done with it. Buying something prepared in a factory, such as chicken nuggets, or hot dogs, you’ll always get the worst meat, and it will always be combined with additives and other sources of fat.
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Label it "ammonium or acid treated beef", duh.
Were we all gaining a 15% discount in the price of the beef they were selling to us or were they simply sneaking it in and charging us the same? I never saw a sign advertising - "Hamburger meat 20% off...Now with even more pink slime!"
The pink slime story has definitely turned me away from beef as well as made me think a lot more about all these factory farms that produce chickens and pigs. It's all pretty disgusting! I can't go completely vegetarian, but I'm trying a lot harder now. I've ingested some pretty disgusting meat products over the years. I'm usually not the kind of person who changes behavior based on pop news events, but it's been brewing for a lot longer than these recent events--witnessing the hog farms in North Carolina that are simply disgusting places that pollute to no end and get away with it.
I as well. That story, plus the study showing eating beef shortens your life basically did it for me. I just haven't quite figured out yet what I'm going to replace beef, pork and chicken with for my protein uptake.
fish
Thank God baseball season is here, and I get a dog at the park.......
George Carlin;
Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow death of fast food. Hot dogs, corn dogs, triple bacon cheeseburgers, deep-fried, butter-dipped in pork fat and Cheese-Whiz, mayonnaise, soaked barbecue, mozzarella patty melts. Americans will eat anything. Anything. Anything. Shit, if you were selling sautéed raccoons' assholes on a stick, Americans would buy them and eat them! Especially if you were to dip them in butter and put a little salsa on them! This country is big-time pig time. Forget the Star-Spangled Banner.
You know what the national anthem of this country outta be? The Oscar-Meyer Commercial Jingle! And while we're at it, change the bald eagle to a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. A big bowl. 'Cause everything in this country is king size, extra large and super jumbo. Especially the fucking people! Have you seen some of the people in this country? Have you taken a good look at some of these big, fat motherfuckers walking around? Big fat motherfuckers! Oh, my God. Huge piles of redundant protoplasm, lumbering through the malls like a fleet of interstate buses. The people in this country are immense. Massive bellies, monstrous thighs, and big fat fucking asses! Next time you're in the vicinity of one of these creatures, stand there for a minute and observe.
And if you stand there for a minute you'll begin to wonder, "How does this woman take a shit?" How does she shit? And more frightening still, how does she wipe her ass? Can she even locate her asshole? She must require assistance. Are paramedics trained in this field?
That last paragraph? I knew a woman like that. Had an assistant to wipe her ass. Wouldn't pass up a buffett for nothing.
Thanks for that, now my eyes are bleeding.
True story, fat woman, mother of friend who rose out of the trailer park ghetto, used a "grabber" to wipe her ass. You know, those grabbers they use in stores sometimes to reach things on high shelves. Problem was, she never cleaned the thing, used it to grab other things around the house since she was wheel chair bound from the diabetes she had from being so obese. She would also throw the used toilet paper on the floor around the toilet since her fat ass covered the whole thing. She managed to live into her late 60's, died last year.
There is program on TLC called my 600 lbs life.
My sister made me watch a portion of program 2 weeks ago.
600 lbs woman before she got the stomach stapling procedure.
She was young....mid 30's. Married. Around the 400 lbs mark, she couldn't reach to wipe herself. For the next 200 lbs, (upward) her husband had to do for her.
At what point does ones addiction to food become so bad, that one chooses the 4th cheeseburger over being able to wipe ones own ass?
The more I read or listen to Carlin, the more I think he is our modern-day Voltaire, Thoreau, and Twain....all in one.
I am halfway through his autobiography now and let me assure you he is one of us. He would be here if he were still alive.
Prologue: I have this really moron thing I do, its called think. - George Carlin
Dump it in reactor #4.
I think this PR nonsense is unreal. One company declares default as maker of pink slime. Quietly get one shithouse out of producing food for the masses. They are hoping this goes away before they have to reveal what is in the rest of the food supply people laughingly call by their original names, long after the original ingredients have been replaced or downgraded, or even made redundant and given pink slips.
But what do we think is in other processed meat? hotdogs, sausage, wursts, spam, salami, or anything in a processed food product? How about a piece of baloney (or bologna Mr. Quayle) Do you think they put pink slime in these products? Course they do. How about brains? How about organ's. Oh yeah. Feed the animals antibiotics because they always have infections and then let them top off with chinese cow chow.
You want it, you got it; Mad Cow brain realignment training, Gout, and nice fat pink slime tumors. Eat up, or you won't get your pudding.
At the same time, people want to buy vegetables hermitically sealed in plastic because they worry about other people touching their food, or because it helps them imagine that it didn't grow out of --- the dirt.
I met a woman who only ate canned foods. I asked her why. She said the can was cleaner.
I have neighbors who won't allow their children to eat fruit off one of their own backyard tree because according to them it is poisonous. No explanation given. So we collect it and eat it ourselves because organic food is pricey.
These kinds of people are going to have a really hard time feeding themselves some day.
Shoot them first!
Mmmmm -- long pork -- them's good eats.
Okay I just grossed myself out ...
PGPR
Soylent Green!
Who is anyone kidding here? This nastiness will be renamed, rebranded and repackaged in a matter of days (under perhaps a different company name) and be back on the USDA 'buy' list for the school lunches and back in what we eat in no time. Seriously, they don't give a crap about public outrage.
Sure they do! They care just enough to want to make it go away.
Fact. School lunch programs are a dumping ground for every kind of maximally processed, de-natured, ill-kept industrially farmed crap.
Nothing ever changes, these operations go underground and return as something named "Sunshine Happy Foods" in a matter of days. If people don't like how their fast- and processed-foods are made for them, they should really avoid those parts of the food industry entirely and buy food whose origins are either local or are somehow connected to nature or natural methods of husbandry.
Not that "cage free", "organic", "grass-fed" and "free range" mean a whole lot either (does anyone audit any of these claims? I doubt it) but clearly it's a start.
its a nice easter pink color, Warren Buffett is doing a deal for the supply to sell as Dairy Queen pink cones. Looks like it will maintain a nice DQ signature swirl quite well. Speaking of DQ, someone should investigate that fake crap they can't even call ice cream. It's probably worse than pink slime.
Culvers custard is infinitely better.
So long, BPI, we hardly knew ye! And good riddance.
As soon as I realized I was eating this frankestein-food, I immediately stopped buying all hamburger from Wal-Mart. It disgusts me to think how much of this slaughterhouse floor sweepings I've been eating over the years. Outrageous.
We never learn from our history - just look at what food & dairy producers used to put in their products 100 years ago to 'fortify' them -- water, chalk dust, offal, etc.
You are what you eat -- so DON'T EAT CRAP!!!
You know, we're all so careful here on ZH about preserving & building our wealth, but what good is it if you're dead or sick when you're older and cannot enjoy it?
You can't help but get the feeling that "dead or sick" was part of the overall plan from the start.
You had savings? We have a "health care industry" for that. Say hello to adult-onset Type 2 diabetes ...
The little people must not be allowed any significant intergenerational transfer of wealth. Everything must return to the system unless you own the system. But the policy of "spend-down" and medical bankruptcy even for the insured is not enough. They also have to make the inherited house unsellable by shredding the title into pink slime. (Thanks for speaking the truth, Common_Cents22)
You shop at Walmart?
you beat me to it - so I'll just up vote you.
but yeah, buy meat at Wal Mart - that's a winner.
By the way...which one's Pink?
Matches the red slime on the balance sheets for the US.
I like meat.
Finely Textured Beef
Weren't all the toxic MBS just finely textured mortgages? ground up and resold, with a dose of sanitizer?
We buy almost all of our meat from a local butcher shop. We try not to notice the connected funeral home next door, though.
In other news, I wonder when Taco Bell will go under? (I never see many people there anymore)
Fast food chains are a great way to launder money.
and victims of ritual blood rites.
The History of Jewish Human SacrificeDisrespect ZeroHedge again and you will be banned.
That is not a threat. It is a statement.
Tamboo is one of my favorite posters. You are not.
Too bad for me
I will not hestitate to put commentators in time-outs for the kind of garbage contained in that particular comment.
It is disrespectful to all who work 24/7 to create the first rate content that you enjoy everyday at ZeroHedge.
Personally I am sick of his off-topic toxic garbage, FWIW
Pulsating psychotic delusion is part of the surreal backdrop to the end of the world, and part of what makes these times so dangerous. As soon as the pillars of civilization start to erode the worst sort of mental contagion oozes out of the sulfurous mud of collective human insanity like a gigantic mutated hagfish, and sets about devouring the cranial contents of anything that cannot fly.
It is a statement. A false statement, sure, but definitely a statement.
You have to go pretty damn far to get banned here. Posting a few racist, collectivist links probably isn't going to do it.
so sure its false?
[IMG]http://i44.tinypic.com/s6r9qq.jpg[/IMG]
Borat's great grandpa painted a picture of da joos bleeding christian babies, it MUST be true!
Nevermind that that isn't what I was referring to as a false statement.
You might be interested in reading the book "Blood Passover" by Ariel Toaff. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.
The book was censored in an outburst of hysterical obscurantism similar to what we read above and yet, the full text is readily available here:
BLOOD PASSOVER By Ariel Toaff
http://www.bloodpassover.com/index1.htm
Always insist on free range humans.
Bon appitite.
Free range, organic Soylent Green is best.
no wonder taco bell is focusing on selling you the new dorito taco shell. hey, look over there!
taco bell dorito taco supreme is pretty good ;)
GMO corn dude. read up on it - this might get you started:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/06/dangerous-...
Well folks (still) have free choice to stick in their month what thay want. Yummie!
It's a long way from informed consent or "free choice" with the continuous flow of misleading indoctrination that the "folks" get.
Ummm,
Fried pink slime balogna with peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Double Elvis special with a tumbler of Jack Daniels.
Can't get more Murican then that.
Don't forget to get the whole wheat and sawdust bread.
Archie: Edith what's for dinner?
Edith: Beef tongue
Archie: I ain't eatin nottin out of a cow's mouth.. that's disgusting
Edith: OK Archie, what would you like
Archie: Gimme a couple of hard boiled eggs.
What is YUM(taco bell) going to do?
* golf clap *
Todd Schnitt of the Schnitt Show debunked the entire "Pink SLime" story.
It was a set-up by Jim Avila of ABC News and a disgruntled USDA employee.
The whole story is on his radio show website. If anything, Avila slimed the makers of the product; the so-called "chef" misrepresented the entire process.
Do NOT trust the MSM!
I have always felt Schnitt was right down the middle. He does NOT play favorites.
--LC55
Changed to more accurately reflect reality:
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Ballsack said March 28 that the product, referred to in the industry as lean, finely textured beef, is safe to eat.
A few well placed articles brings down the pink slime people.
Now if we could only get a few well placed articles about the fed out there.
WAIT! DON'T FILE! WE CAN SAVE JOBS AND FEED ALL THOSE FOOD STAMP RECIPIENTS !!!
AFA Foods -- does that stand for America Fucked Again?
That was quick, I'm hoping they got the taxpayer to pick it up.
WHEAT is the new Conspriacy theory
for tyler:
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/02/what-if/
these are the words of author and MD/cardiologist where all roads lead to greed and evil in the food industry
yes, wheat..the thing that is in EVERYTHING even your meatballs
Do they have this shit in a toothpaste tube, like that cheese?
You can get tubes of some kind of goo that comes from the ocean at Ikea.
The government will rescue this company and provide pink slime as an alternative to food stamps. Then all they need to do is classify it as a vegetable and they can sell it in school cafe's.
Ready for white slime? You've been eating it. All the crab you thought you were getting in sushi was fake all along!
Say Konichiwa to.......Surimi !
Watch this, if you can..
http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/07/traumatizing-imitation-crab-manufactur...
That's not so bad. At least you're eating fish.
Fish is loaded up with all the stuff we dump in the water. It is gross. I don't eat hamburger I don't grind myself with meat from cows I personally know. I won't eat surimi either. I love seafood, but it is becoming harder and harder for me to eat knowing what is in the water anymore. I fish a lot, so I still eat what I catch in clean rivers and lakes. Ocean fish is highly suspect and I have cut down on it drastically, but I have a big weakness for halibut and shellfish.
take yr zeolite and chlorella Kali!
LOL. Too late. We are born with so much nasty shit in our bodies now, won't make a difference. I am surprised there aren't a lot more mutant children as it is. It's kinda funny, although I try to be careful with what I eat - I still smoke cigs and massive amounts of pot (my personal tranq and sanity-keeper). WTF! But so did one of my great grandmothers (sans the pot, she drank like a fish) and she lived to be over 100!! And I am healthier than most people half my age, run circles around them. I think it's all the physical activity I partake of that keeps me healthy. And lots of blueberries! Anti-oxidants bitchez! : )
They can always use the slime to make dildos
TBTF doesn't that stand for Textured Beef, Textured Fowl ? Or, is it Too Big To Fail ? Or, is it a combination of (shudder) - BOTH ! OH, MY GOD, THEY'RE BOTH JOINED TOGETHER AT THE HIP - The conspiracy, cover up, corporate fuck over of anyone for a buck. Time to turn the perpetrators into their own product. Walk them all through airport snow blowers, grind 'em up, and feed 'em to Fido and Fluffy. Might's well get some use out of the morally corrupt.
The FDA's response in this has been horrific. It's not a stretch to suggest the FDA would not feed this "meat" to its family. So what are they their for?
If this outfit goes under I will be reduced to eating brains and balls. Ugh!
Sounds like scrapple.
I love scrapple.
Screw all that crap that they call food; I'm going on the:
http://blogs.menshealth.com/health-headlines/the-beer-diet/2011/04/30
OK, one more comment no one would read. Look, if you still eat mass-produced hamburger (or any other processed meats) in our E. coli, Mad Cow world, you are a loon. Yesterday at my local Safeway I picked up a nice boneless butt roast for $2.49/pound and had the butcher grind it for me. Took an extra 3 minutes. In the butcher's case he was selling lean ground beef for $4.49/pound. As long as he'll grind it for free, I will continue to enjoy great ground beef that is safe - and cheap.
Is this constructive? Is the mob learning anything? Or are the uneducated reacting like the french farmers of old who destroyed the first hot air balloon? If we want to focus on more nutritious food, then why not seek the truth and forget the alarmist crap?
http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/pink_slime.htm
Long Hormel.
Let's just rebrand this product.. Flamingo Foods. yum, yum, mmm..mmm
http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/flamingo/diet.htm
For Canadians:
Co-op, sobeys and safeway all use the "pink slime product from AfA foods, BFI, Cargill and tyson.
This is Beef Products Inc.: 925-467-3000
Everyone should write the health minister;
http://hc-sc.gc.ca/contact/ahc-asc/minist-eng.php
and contact the media departments for;
co-op- CEO Deane Collinson at 403.219.6025
Safeway- 925-467-3000 press contacts
george weston (Loblaws); 416.922.2500
reminds me of this song
Roly poly fish heads, eat'um up yum!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTpUVAcvWfU
that is fucking disgusting
Where's the beef?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0
Best quote is off the fooducate website in response to this stuff.
"This article is useless without info as to where I can get a softserve frozen meat cone."
No - its not the Bernie Madoff of the food industry - this is just meat.
The real trojan horse? Sewage sludge. Fertilizer, Human turds, tampon applicators, medical and industrial waste.
Big ag loves it - and I bet a vast proportion of what you eat came from your neighbors toilet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sludge
http://www.synagro.com/
Bon appetit!
Yucaipa, ha ha ha. I was never impressed with them. I think it's s pledge fund, or just the personal investment vehicle for Burkle. Actually now that I think about it, pretty sure Clinton was invested too.
Donate the pink slime to the group that puts pink on everything for breast cancer research.......we can sell "pink burgers" and help out a charity. Problem solved!!!!
Did Jamie Oliver just crash an entire industry?
"schools in the government’s lunch program can order ground beef without the product"
The can, but they won't.
__________________________________
Compare gold and silver prices
I don't understand why this sudden sensitivity by the public is taking place right now, since the majority of Americans have been in consuming McFood for 2 out of 3 of their meals on a daily basis.
Is it the fact that said substance has been dubbed "pink slime" by the media? Because I can assure you that your neatly packed big mac is made of an equally vomit-inducing ingredient.
That's what you get when you disrupt the sweet bliss of ignorance.