03.19.12
CAHY: Innovative meat product (continued)
[The] U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to give school administrators a choice regarding the use of “pink slime” in school lunches. For the next school year, administrators can choose to order beef without “pink slime.” This alternative plan was created because of what the USDA dubbed, “customer demand.”
After word got out that schools would continue to use the product, officially called “Lean Finely Textured Beef,” parents and the general public were outraged. Thousands of people signed petitions asking the government to stop buying “pink slime” for school lunches …
Bad publicity did the trick. A good deal of it developed after a television food show lampooned the Beef Products, Inc. material.
YouTube video of that is on the web here.
“This is not fit for human consumption,” he says. “But what if I told you in America they’ve come up with a bit of technology that can turn this into something that ends up in your school food.” Cut to kid in audience sticking his tongue out and making a face.
It’s great television.
Beef Products, Inc. responded with its own video. And it has not been nearly as effective.
The dry professors trotted out to talk about pink slime have no presence or even much immediate likability. Which might have boomeranged if people — in any number — saw the response. But they didn’t.
One would conclude the USDA decision to allow schools to opt out of using pink slime innovative meat product is viewed with alarm at the company. It was a revenue stream that is threatened by public revulsion, driven by a vociferous consumer group, mothers who would not want their children to unknowingly have it.