AR-News: (US) Dorm food supplier has less-than-tasty history

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

CSULB Online
VOL. LIV, NO. 117 California State University, Long BeachMay 12, 2004




By Sean Orfila
On-line Forty-Niner
While the food at the residential dining halls at Cal State Long Beach may 
exceed the quality of many local restaurants and fast-food chains -- most diners 
don’t consider the origin of the food on their plate.
Chicken is the most popular food on the menu, said Patti Gray, director of 
residential dining at CSULB. With an Atkins diet craze in full swing, chicken 
and beef are now more popular than ever with massive factory farming companies 
that continued to succeed, regardless of a Mad-cow disease scare.
Tyson Foods Inc., the world’s largest poultry producer and packager, supplies 
the chicken for CSULB, as well as many K-12 institutions around the country. 
According to the Sierra Club, Tyson Foods has received $102.7 million for its 
sales to the School Lunch Program and other Federal Food Assistance Programs 
since 1996. 
Tyson operates packing facilities in 15 states, making it the largest factory 
farm in the United States. The company is also a main supplier for Kentucky 
Fried Chicken. 
The company was ranked 177th in the Fortune 500, yet was named in the 
Multinational Monitor’s “Top Ten Worst Corporations” of 1999 after seven employees 
died in seven months at Tyson’s facilities and a slew of lawsuits regarding 
environmental and labor disputes embattled the company.
According to the Sierra Club’s Web site, Maryland environmental investigators 
confirmed pits of dead chicken carcasses and huge piles of exposed manure at 
two Tyson chicken factories, after a Washington Post reporter had observed the 
alleged violations and contacted state officials. Tyson Farms’ actions 
violated the terms of a recent $6 million settlement of a federal pollution lawsuit 
by continuing to dump chicken carcasses and manure in shallow open-air pits, 
rather than in disposal sheds. For these violations, Tyson was fined $70,000.
In 2001, the U.S. Justice Department filed a 36-count indictment against 
Tyson Foods and six of its employees, executives and managers. The charges 
regarded a conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America to 
work in 15 of its U.S. poultry processing plants. 
The Justice Department alleged that Tyson and their coconspirators assisted 
the workers in obtaining fraudulent identification and employment documents. 
Three employees pleaded guilty and were fired. In March 2003, a federal grand 
jury acquitted Tyson Foods and three of its managers of the charges.
full story:
http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/archives/2004/spring/news/volLIVno117-dorm.shtml 


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    "The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those 
rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of 
tyranny. The question is not can they REASON, nor can they TALK, but can they 
SUFFER?" 
Jeremy Bentham 1748 - 1832 



         
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