Meat-processing plant in B.C.’s Interior accused of improper offal disposal

It’s not something anyone expects to see on their property when they wake up: the leg of a cow.

But veterinarian Teresa Jacobson found exactly that while harrowing her field near Westwold, B.C., a small community located approximately 45 minutes north of Vernon on Highway 97.

Jacobson believes the leg came from a nearby meat-processing plant, KML Meat Processors Ltd., which has run afoul of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency four times recently.

“This is unacceptable,” said Jacobson. “This (meat-processing) plant was one of the plants designated to dispose of cattle with bovine tuberculosis.”

Jacobson’s claim was confirmed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Monday.

WATCH (March 5, 2019): Animal Protection Services seize 131 distressed cattle, 16 more dead in Saskatchewan

1:45 Animal Protection Services seize 131 distressed cattle, 16 more dead in Lampman, Sask.

Jacobson states the plant’s practices for disposing offal, or animal waste byproducts, aren’t legal.

“It is my impression — and, I am pretty sure, the law — that they are not allowed to dispose of their offal by pushing it into a ditch,” she said.

Jacobson, who suspects the cow’s leg was brought onto her property by a predatory animal, is especially worried because of the plant’s past.

WATCH (March 8, 2018): Alberta landlord finds dead cats and dogs on her property

1:40 Alberta landlord finds dead cats and dogs on her property

KML Meat Processors had its licence temporarily suspended in November 2017 “due to the company’s inability to design, implement and maintain an acceptable written prerequisite program and a hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) system as required by the Meat Inspection Act and Regulations, 1990,” according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The company also had its licence temporarily suspended in July 2017, March 2017 and December 2016.

KML Meat Processors general manager Brian Read says he was hired in January to clean up the company’s act.

“That’s exactly my role,” he said.

Read says some hides are stored outside in the winter but that they are properly processed so other animals won’t take them.

“They’re salted, they’re cured,” he said. “There’s no odour coming out of there.”

As for the offal, Read said: “It all goes to a rendering plant where it gets composted.”

Jacobson, though, is not satisfied.

“Somebody should be making sure that they dispose of their carcasses properly,” she said.