SOUTHERN STORMS
25 percent of Alabama
poultry houses destroyed,
damaged in storms
Thousands of chickens have been lost
in the recent Alabama tornadoes, and
numbers could grow as the damage is fully
assessed, according to state officials.
Roughly 200 of Alabama’s poultry houses
have been destroyed and another 514 damaged
due to the state’s recent storms, accounting
for up to 25% of the state’s poultry houses,
according to Commissioner John McMillan
of the Alabama Department of Agriculture
and Industries.
“Thousands of chickens have been lost
in the tornadoes, and these numbers could
grow as we continue to assess the damage,”
said McMillan. Power outages in the days
immediately following the tornadoes affected
both grow-out and feed-milling operations at
some companies.
Alabama is the third-largest poultry
producer in the U.S., according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
State of;cials are continuing to monitor
the situation and provide assistance to
those affected. “We have deployed our
field inspectors to the hard-hit areas of
North Alabama to assist state emergency
management efforts,” said McMillan.
TURKEY HATCHERY
Aviagen turkey company
breaks ground on Iowa
hatchery
Valley of the Moon Commercial Poults,
Aviagen’s new company serving the turkey
industry, of;cially broke ground on its new
87,000-square-foot, 50-million-egg hatchery,
being built in Osceola, Iowa, on April 12.
EXEC RESIGNS
Butterball president, CEO
Keith Shoemaker resigns
Butterball LLC
President and CEO
Keith Shoemaker has
resigned from his
position in the company
as of April 25, 2011.
Until a permanent
successor is named,
“Butterball thanks Shoemaker for
his valuable service and for successfully
guiding the company through last year’s
change in ownership as well as his role in
making the company what it is today,” said
Walter Pelletier, president of Maxwell Farms
LLC and board member of Butterball. The
board has said that it does not anticipate
major changes in any areas of production or
employment during the transition.
Keith Shoemaker
FOOD LABELING
European Union calls for
revised food labeling of
poultry, meat products
Environmental Committee draft legislation, voted
on at the second reading by the Environment,
Public Health and Food Safety Committee, aims
to modernize, simplify and clarify food labeling
within the EU.
Food labels for poultry and meat should
include “date of ;rst freezing,” “country
of provenance” and where an animal was
born, reared and slaughtered, according to
European Union Environment Committee
members of Parliament. Also, meat from
slaughter without stunning should be
labeled as such and meat consisting of
combined meat parts should be labeled
“formed meat.”
Committee-amended draft legislation
aims to modernize, simplify and clarify
food labeling within the EU, according to
committee members. It would change existing
rules on information that is compulsory on
all labels, such as name, list of ingredients,
“best before” or “use by” dates and speci;c
conditions of use, and would add a requirement
to list key nutritional information.
The committee approved its proposals,
giving a strong mandate to achieve a second-reading agreement with Council ahead of
Parliament’s plenary vote in July. Once the
legislation is adopted, food businesses will
have three years to adapt to the rules and two
more years after that to apply the rules on the
nutritional declaration. ■
