Westland/Hallmark president says ill cows weren’t slaughtered – then eats his words

The president of a Southern California slaughterhouse shut down by the U.S. Department of Agriculture amid the largest meat recall in U.S. history told Congress today that none of the crippled cows who were pushed with forklifts and water sprays to slaughter had entered the food supply.

“While these cows should be treated humanely, and they were not, these cows were not harvested and they did not enter the food supply,” Steve Mendell, head of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., said in written testimony. “They were not slaughtered, ground or sold. They were euthanized and removed.”

But after a congressional committee showed a second video, produced by the same undercover U.S. Humane Society employee whose original video propelled a federal investigation of Westland/Hallmark, Mendell acknowledged that at least two “downer” cows – cows too sick to walk into the slaughterhouse on their own power and more vulnerable to carrying diseases – had in fact entered the food supply.

“Obviously my system broke down,” he said.

Mendell, testifying that his company had required employees to go through training for proper handling of the animals, said he was sorry in retrospect that he had not installed his own cameras to catch workers who were allowing sick cows into the food chain.

“This is not the company I know,” he said, describing his reaction to seeing the original video. “I couldn’t believe it was my plant, until I saw the videos.”

The appearance before a House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee marked Mendell’s first public comments since the USDA recalled 143 million pounds of beef and shut down the Chino slaughterhouse in February.

“Our company is ruined. We cannot continue,” Mendell said, reporting that 220 employees have lost or are about to lose their jobs and that he had received death threats.

Under USDA regulations, “downer” cows are not allowed to enter the nation’s food supply unless a USDA veterinarian certifies that their injury was external and would not affect the quality of their meat. Congress is considering strengthening the law to prohibit all downer cows from being sent to slaughter.

johanna.neuman@latimes.com

nicole.gaouette@latimes.com