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Tag: pork

  • Bacon Prices Up; Is Your BLT Diseased?

    In a piece of apocalyptic news that rivals the blood moon tetrad, bacon prices are going up. The National Pork Board had to release a press statement about a virus called the “porcine epidemic diarrhea virus” (PEDV) that is killing millions of pigs. As Galen Velonis reported, the virus thrived right through the winter and shows little sign of stopping.

    The Pork Board is trying to calm fears about the virus, and with good reason. It’s bad enough to have a problem that is decimating your supply, jacking up prices and causing people to look for other pigging out alternatives. But if people were to start thinking that your product may be diseased, well, that’s a whole different problem altogether. Just ask beef producers, especially in England.

    The pork people plaintively point out:

    * This is not a new virus, nor is it a regulatory/reportable disease. Since PEDV is widespread in many countries, it is not a trade-restricting disease, but rather a production-related disease.

    * It is not zoonotic, so therefore it poses no risk to other animals or humans. Also, it poses no risk to food safety.

    * The virus is not a new virus as it was first recognized in England in 1971. Since then, the disease has been identified in a number of European countries, and more recently in China, Korea and Japan.

    * PEDV does not affect pork safety. Pork remains completely safe to eat.

    But the statement that “this is not a new virus” is meeting with a challenge. As NBC News points out, it may be old news in England, China, et al, but this is a first in the U.S., and it is tearing through pig farms from coast to coast with a Legionic vengeance.

    The news that bacon prices are going up did not sit well with the Twitterverse. As one user pointed out: “This is how The Walking Dead started.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • $120 Egg Sandwich Offered at Sydney Restaurant

    An egg sandwich would rank pretty low in an ordered list of expensive sandwiches. One restaurant, however, has found a way to raise the price of an egg sandwich to over $100.

    According to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, a Sydney, Australia restaurant called 4Fourteen this week will be selling a $120 egg sandwich. It contains Australian bacon, a duck egg fried in truffle butter, roasted foie gras, aged cheddar, shaved truffle, semi-dried smoked gourmet truss tomato, and a crème fraîche and caviar dressing, all on a brioche roll.

    The sandwich will be available only during this week. The sandwich was unveiled at a breakfast Monday morning at 4Fourteen, hosted by Australian celebrity chef and 4Fourteen owner Colin Fassnidge. A 4Fourteen chef named Carla Jones told the Telegraph that she expects people to order the sandwich out of curiosity, though she might not eat it herself because she is “not that into truffles.”

    The egg sandwich is actually part of “Bacon Week” – a celebration of Australian pork. Events promoting locally-produced pork will be held throughout Australia this week. The organization Australian Pork Limited (APL) has issued a challenge to other Australian chefs to create a bacon and egg roll to rival 4Fourteen’s.

  • Sausage Recalled by Smithfield Packing

    Sausage Recalled by Smithfield Packing

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced that the Smithfield Packing Company is recalling around 38,000 pounds of pork sausage. In a statement, the FSIS said that the meat could contain “small pieces of plastic,” which “likely” come from gloves.

    The recalled products are one-pound “chubs” of Gwaltney mild pork sausage roll that have a use-by date of March 12, 2013 and cases of the same type of sausage roll that have a case code of 78533109741.

    The meat was packaged on January 11 of this year and have been shipped to 11 states and the District of Columbia. The states are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

    Smithfield discovered the contamination after it received two separate complaints from customers. So far, there have been no reported injuries due to the plastic pieces.

    Located in Smithfield, Virginia, the Smithfield Packing Company was founded in 1936. It has been shipping pork products since that time and is one of the largest meat companies in the U.S.