KCRA & the Safeway Meat Scandal (10)
The first California case Ross described bore some striking similarities to the lawsuit filed that morning in Denver. In early January, Interfaith had accused Safeway of being in contempt of court, for allegedly refusing to abide by an earlier out of court settlement on the labeling of hamburger.
Safeway had agreed in a Los Angeles court, Ross told me, to drop designations like "chuck" and "round" in favor of of "regular," lean," and "extra lean." "Regular" was to indicate a fat content between 24% and 26%. (Federal law, he said, prohibits the fat content of any hamburger from exceeding 30%.) Safeway's "lean" grades, according to Ross, were to contain no more than 20% fat, and "extra lean" would mean a fat content between 13% and 15%.
Ross said Safeway was also obligated to provide written information on fat contents for consumers. The chain had complied in Southern California, he told me, but not in the northern portion of the state.
He said testing of all three grades of Safeway's ground beef had revealed the fat contents of "lean" and "extra lean" grades to actually be the same as for regular--and in some cases, higher.
Fat contents as high as 28% had allegedly been found in "lean" hamburger. (Safeway, he reminded me, had agreed to lower fat contents--24% to 26%--for its regular grades. The supposedly "lean" hamburger, he noted, was actually approaching the legal limit of 30% for any kind of ground beef.
(c) COPYRIGHT 1973 ROBERT WINTER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.