Bryan J. Clapper

1502 2nd Ave SW, Austin, MN 55912 • bryan@bjclapper.com

Writing examples

Column: Money influencing food safety debate

Originally published in the Austin Daily Herald, Nov. 18, 2007

This week, Hormel Foods executives were in Washington defending their use of trace amounts of carbon monoxide in the packaging of some meat products.

I won’t debate whether or not “modified atmosphere packaging,” as it’s called, is safe or not — after all, I’m neither a food safety expert nor a scientist.

What a lot of media outlets who are covering this story have missed, though, is that this debate really isn’t about the safety of meat packaged in this way; it’s a clear case of congressional interference in business affairs.

The Food and Drug Administration approved using carbon monoxide in modified atmosphere packaging, and Hormel and Cargill (along with other meat producers) were doing it for years without complaints, illnesses in consumers or really any notice at all. It wasn’t until a small spice company from Michigan raised a stink about the practice that carbon monoxide in food packaging was even a blip on the House’s radar.

Kalsec Inc. began lobbying against the use of carbon monoxide in meat packaging two years ago, and has since spent $840,000 pushing their cause in Congress.

Never heard of Kalsec? Neither has any other average consumer. They make spice extracts for industrial applications and they’re not exactly a “player” in the food industry. Yet in 2006 they spent the eighth most in direct lobbying money of any company in food processing and sales, ranking right below General Mills and two spots ahead of Kellogg Company. They even outspent and outranked the American Meat Institute, the association that lobbies for many meat companies, including Hormel and Cargill. That’s all according to the Secretary of the Senate’s Office of Public Records, where companies that lobby Congress are required to file their information and intent. The last time Hormel registered as having spent any money in direct lobbying was 2004, when the company spent $20,000. (This information is all public record, and can be accessed at http://www.opensecrets.org/).

Kalsec’s lobbying efforts aren’t due to a humanitarian effort to get what they believe is an unsafe product off of consumer’s plates — it’s a business decision, plain and simple.

Kalsec manufactures a rosemary extract that does the same thing that carbon monoxide in trace amounts in modified atmosphere packaging does: keep the reddish color of red meat longer. Kalsec’s “Herbalox” seasonings — which they call “oxidation management products” — just don’t do it as well.

Most of the House scrutiny of modified atmosphere packaging has come from the Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations. The Energy and Commerce Committee is chaired by Rep. John Dingell. The subcommittee on oversight and investigations is chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak. Both Dingell and Stupak represent Michigan, which is home to — what else — Kalsec Inc., formerly known as the Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Company.

So what we have here is a case of a company using congressional influence to thwart a competitor and give itself an unfair advantage.

Need more convincing?

Kalsec founder Paul H. Todd Jr. gave $2,100, the maximum allowable individual contribution to a single candidate, to Stupak in 2006. In 2002, he gave the maximum individual contribution to Dingell. He also gave $5,000 in 2006 to the “Michigan Democratic State Central Committee,” the political action committee that benefits both Dingell and Stupak.

Kalsec may not be trying to purchase congressional power, but the money trail makes it clear they may be trying to at least rent it for awhile.

I’m not defending Hormel or necessarily taking the company’s side — if Hormel were on the other side of things, I’d be calling them out for it, as well — but when one company uses government “oversight” for their own benefit, it stinks to high heaven.

Packaging meat in a gas mixture that includes less than 1 percent carbon monoxide may or may not be safe, but that’s not up to a band of politicians with questionable ties to companies with competing technologies to decide — the House should leave it up to the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.