Yet another shipment of U.S. beef has been rejected in Japan for containing bone fragments. The rules are very clear in shipping beef to Japan and South Korea. It is to be boneless, period. No wiggle room, no tolerance, no bones.
Since it is well known that Japan and South Korea politically love to kick sand in the face of the big United States of America, handing them the shovel is not a good idea. Nonetheless, it almost seems to be a game for U.S. packers, to see how much bone they can slip through Japanese and South Korean borders. These countries have shut down importing beef from the U.S. numerous times for bone fragments, but slovenly U.S. packers continue to get it wrong.
They have no one to blame but themselves.
The latest incident involved a shipment from National Packing's Brawley, California plant to Japan. Of course it touched off a big political stink, allowing Japan for once to show its great kindness and generosity (ha!) by only banning that plant from shipping beef to them, rather than shutting down the whole shebang.
It defies credulity that U.S. packers are unable to inspect the relatively minor amount of shipments from its plants that are going to these two countries, to be certain they are in perfect shape, before they leave the plant. There should be U.S. government inspectors to look at them one more time at the dock on the west coast before they leave this country, to be absolutely certain that the meat is truly boneless. Government always screws up, so its lack of diligence is par for the course, but private firms that derive great income and prestige from exporting U.S. beef have no excuse.
It is astounding that U.S. packers are not able to pull their act together. U.S. beef producers, and American citizens as well, should demand better.
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