As you are likely aware, a recent NY Times article published on April 11, 2012, by Stephanie Strom, titled “48% of Chicken in Small Sample Has E. Coli” has brought into question the industry best practices for assuring the food safety of poultry in the consumers retail food supply.

Again, like “pink slime” in beef, it’s about cost and competing with another vendor based on a cheaper price.

At Bell & Evans, we hold ourselves to a much higher standard than any other poultry company, because we know our customers would expect nothing less from us.

For instance, things that are common in the industry (but not at Bell & Evans):  baby chicks are started on a composting bed of manure that may be more than a year old.  A year old bed includes feces from several previous flocks.  The old manure is a haven for E. Coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter production.  The equipment that is used to transport the chickens to the processing plant is not cleaned and sanitized between loads.  Chickens are then loaded into a large chlorinated water chiller and the hope is that all this will go away!

At Bell & Evans, we believe combating E. Coli, and food safety in particular, all starts at the farm. Over the years we have developed a live operations program, and production process that is second to none!

Almost too numerous to mention in a single page letter, some of the following highlights what we commit to at Bell & Evans to assure the food safety and wholesomeness of our products to our customers:

• Barns with cement floors prevent rodents entry and spreading diseases
• A scientifically designed diet for our birds for peak health & well-being
• Rigorously test the feed and birds to insure quality & wholesomeness of each
• Athorough cleanout of all litter & complete sanitation of barns after each flock is removed
• Barns sit empty for 2-weeks prior to putting in fresh shavings and a new flock – this assures there can be no possibility of a flock-to-flock transmission of any “bug” whatsoever
• A complete and thorough cleaning of the plant & all equipment daily or between use
• 100% Air chill system – no massive chlorinated water bath chills for our birds
• Each bird is individually air chilled
• A single layer air chill system to assure there is no cross contamination by bird-to-bird dripping
• Each bird gets an Organic Certified anti-microbial dip to reduce the possibility of any contamination.
• Continuous sampling of our feed, litter, water, equipment & birds by our in house QC laboratory & monitored by top management

As you can see, we are proud of what we do, and stand behind the integrity of our product, people and processes in making sure every Bell & Evans chicken is the safest, most wholesome chicken our customers can buy.

When the retail food industry demands meeting a price point and a profit margin that may mean there is not much left for the producer.  It’s exactly how we push producers to do unscrupulous things.

For example, feeding animals Hexane produced soybean meal, arsenic, and DDGS ethanol by products loaded with sulfur and antibiotics.

In the poultry industry the list of short cuts and cost cuts could fit the “pink slime” description.

Let’s start moving the bar up.  It starts with consumers demanding retailers to carry brands that follow strict quality protocols.

Our government spent billions to subsidize and promote using millions of acres of precious American farmland to replace imported oil is unconscionable.

Now that corn is worth three times the past 20 year average at $9.00 per bushel and nearly half the U.S. crop is going to produce ethanol, we may have started a food inflation cycle that will grow out of control.

Can you believe that we slow down our oil imports and increase food imports!

We need to use American farm land for more than just fuel!

Out of desperation many animal production farms have resorted to using up to 20% ethanol by-products in their diets.  Ethanol by-products are dangerous- antibiotic and chemical laced loads of garbage! I would not feed any animal this kind of product ever.

Food vs. Fuel leadership has gone amuck!

We at Bell & Evans have not cut quality in anything we do and our plans are to continue to improve in all areas.  This year we added fully recyclable boxes to our program and just recently started our SIA system.  We now think that we have the humane slaughter method for poultry in the World.

Every year around this time I have people tell me they barbequed their chicken and, even though they keep adding BBQ sauce,  the meat was dry. There is a very simple answer to this problem. PAR BOIL your chicken before putting it on the grill. It eliminates the problem of dry, charred meat outside and raw meat inside.

Just fill a pot with water, place the chicken pieces in the water and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the chicken from the water, cover and set aside until you’re ready to grill.  This allows the meat to rest and retain its juices.  (Save the water you used to simmer the chicken for a stock base later.) The chicken will not be fully cooked, but it will require less time on the grill and less chance of drying out the meat.

When the grill is ready, place the pieces on the grill, until one side is golden brown, flip and brown the other side. At this point, if you choose, add your BBQ sauce and grill for several minutes until the sugar in the sauce starts to crackle and carmelize. Remove and serve. You and your family or guests will love the great taste of Bell & Evans grilled chicken!

Here are some simple words to live by: If you can’t pronounce it… don’t eat it.

Read food labels… especially the ingredient list. If it sounds like a chemical experiment, put it down. Also beware of some ‘all-natural’ products that say they contain “natural flavorings.” These so-called natural flavorings are added to foods that lose flavor in processing.

The definition of natural flavor under the Code of Federal Regulations is: “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” (21CFR101.22).

Natural flavorings include things like high-fructose corn syrup, glutamate, sodium benzoate, etc.; and are created by ‘flavorists’ and produced in laboratories. There’s nothing natural about it.

I’m proud of Bell & Evan’s ingredients and encourage you to read our labels. We use all-natural ingredients in every frozen ready-to-cook and fully-cooked product we make. No artificial colorings – No artificial flavorings – No fillers – No extenders. I promise you won’t need a degree in chemical engineering to read them!

It all starts with our unique air-chilled processing system. Every Bell & Evans chicken is air chilled, so no water or chlorine permeates the meat to dilute the flavor or add water weight. Our chicken retains its own natural juices and insures each piece is tender and full of flavor. Whether fresh or frozen, you’ll taste the honest natural chicken flavor in every bite.

Read… then taste the difference for yourself!

 The celebration of Earth Day is a great time for individuals as well as companies to rededicate themselves to protecting the environment.

At Bell & Evans, it is part of our Bell & Evans Best Practices Standard to be good stewards of the land year-round.

ON THE FARM

• Infertile Eggs are recycled – the liquids are separated from the shells and sent to a local methane digester to be converted to electricity. The shells are pulverized and used in fertilizer.

• Extruded and Expeller-pressed Soybeans – produce soy meal without releasing toxic Hexane gas into our environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) categorizes hexane as a hazardous air pollutant.

• Reclaimed Oil – oil, that is extruded and expeller pressed from soy beans, is converted to biodiesel and used by the trucks to transport grain to and from the mill.

• Chicken Manure – is composted for use on the farm or sold to other agricultural industries for fertilizer.

AT THE FACILITY

• Air Chilled Facility – our air-chilled system lowers our water usage by tens of thousands of gallons of water each day, over traditional poultry processing plants.

• State-of-the-art Wastewater Treatment Plant – wastewater effluent is discharged into the stream next to our plant, that is abundant with fish, muskrat, mink, frog and bird activity.

IN PACKAGING

• Fresh Packaging Trays – our new fresh product trays are made from 50% recycled materials and are PETE #1 recyclable.

• Frozen Packaging Boxes – are ‘paperboard packaging recyclable’ which means they are made from recycled or recyclable materials.

• Recyclable Shipping Containers – Since water does not weep from our air-chilled chicken, we and our retailers can recycle all of our shipping containers. Little changes can make a big difference.

Please join me in conserving our natural resources.

It’s the right thing to do.

Our new website launched this week and I invite you all to check it out. A lot has happened since our last web update, so there’s plenty to see.

Going Organic…
In case you didn’t know, we now offer a complete line of fresh organic chicken. This link on the home page will take you directly to the information on how our organic chickens are raised. There is also a link to all our organic products and a delicious Organic Chicken Fettucini Alfredo recipe.

From the farm…
This link takes you to information on The Bell & Evans Humane Animal Welfare Standard. For in-depth information about the care and feeding of our chickens, please visit “Humane Animal Welfare” under “Our Company”.

What’s New…
This is the place to go to find the latest information about Bell & Evans – new products, news items, demo events and my personal appearances.  This year we will be launching a new line of organic frozen products and you will hear about it here, first!  Today we’re featuring our new Fully Cooked, Pulled Chicken Barbeque. Look for it in your grocery stores in the near future.

Also on the home page, we’re highlighting five new recipes each season. There’s a main photograph of the dish, the Bell & Evans product you will need, and a link to the recipe card.  As you watch the home page, the recipes will rotate about every 10 seconds. Moms with finicky eaters will want to watch for the “Bell & Evans Nuggets with Cheesy Mac”. We’ve taken your kids two favorite meals and combine them into one crowd-pleaser!

And be sure to click on “Where to Buy” to find the stores closest to you that carry Bell & Evans.

When you buy organic, you assume you’re purchasing food free from pesticides, antibiotics and growth hormones. But there is so much more. Organic is a commitment to provide you with the highest quality foods, using sustainable agriculture’s best practices.

 Not only must the be chicken raised on a certified organic farm, but also everything it’s fed must be organically grown and certified. This makes the feed more expensive and is why some organic poultry and livestock producers have switched to importing questionably ‘organic grains’ from China.

The nation’s pre-eminent organic farming watchdog group, The Cornucopia Institute, announced this month that the USDA has uncovered attempted fraud by a Chinese organic agricultrual marketer. Using falsified organic certificates, from a French USDA accredited certifying agent, the Chinese marketer certified crops, such as soybeans, millet and buckwheat, headed for the US market were organic.

 Why should this concern you, the consumer?

 Possible pesticides and antibiotics in your food chain and… you’re not getting what you’re paying for.

 At Bell & Evans we use only United States grown grains, corn and extruded and expeller-pressed soybeans that have been grown on certified organic farms and tracked from the field to our feed producers. Sure this grain costs more, but when we say our chicken is 100% organic… we have the certifications to prove it!

At the beginning of the new year, we all make resolutions to eat healthier. I thought it would be a good time to tell you about our chickens diet, because well-fed chickens are happy and less-stressed. The Bell & Evans Animal Welfare Standard guarantees our birds always have access to fresh water and our specially-blended feed.

The Bell & Evans Diet
Our birds thrive on our scientifically-formulated, all-vegetarian diet. The feed is Bell & Evans’ special blend of locally-grown corn and extruded and expeller-pressed soybeans, supplemented with three times the recommended vitamins, including A, D, E, K, B-12, niacin, riboflavin and thiamine. To bolster our young chick’s immune systems, they are fed a special starter diet, containing 15-times the recommended amounts of vitamin E, an antioxidant.

Each batch is electronically monitored to make sure it meets our formulation standards, plus our feed is routinely lab-checked to assure its nutrient value remains constant. We also take the extra step to pelletize the feed, because it makes it more digestible and less likely that contaminants can enter the food chain.  
 
Unlike commodity-produced chickens, we never feed our birds junk food such as rendered meat scraps; bone, feather or fish meal; animal fats; expired bakery goods; used cooking oils or grease; or feed additives containing arsenic. That doesn’t sound very appetizing, does it? We don’t think so either.
 
You may ask…
Why are extruded soybeans and expeller-pressed soybeans so important?
Our special soybean processing method is environmentally friendly and produces soy meal that is richer in healthy nutrients such a lecithin, linoleic acid and vitamin E than the commonly used hexane solvent-extraction process. Nearly all soybeans in the United States are processed using the hexane solvent-extraction method. As part of this process, hexane gas is released into the air.

The Environmental Protection Agency categorizes hexane as a hazardous air pollutant. Residuals from the hexane potentially remain in the final meal. Though solvent extraction is more economical, we believe that raising a healthier chicken and protecting the environment far outweigh the costs.
 
Growing Organic
Our organically-grown chickens dine on an all-vegetable, organic diet made from grains grown in the United States. They get their energy from locally-grown extruded soybeans and expeller pressed soybeans, enhanced with corn and amino acids, that provide additional protein and fiber essential for growing the most tender and flavorful organic chicken. Did you know some poultry producers purchase cheap, questionably “organic” grains from China? For more information: http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/05/soy-report-and-scorecard/

Bell & Evans organic farms are certified organic by Pennsylvania Certified Organic, a USDA-accredited certifier.  PCO performs regular on site plant inspections, assuring you we continue to meet the USDA’s stringent requirements for organic certification.

And, of course, all Bell & Evans chickens receive no growth hormones or antibiotics, including Ionophores, in their feed, their water, or even the egg…ever.
 
In my next entry, I want to talk about how The Bell & Evans Humane Animal Welfare Standard impacts transporting our birds from the farm to the plant.

On December 9th, the FDA announced (http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/CVMUpdates/ucm236143.htm) that the U.S. meat, poultry and dairy producers used almost 29 million, yes million, pounds of antibiotics on their farm animals in 2009, up significantly from just a decade ago.  As you can imagine, public health organizations are troubled by these practices, especially ‘sub-therapeutic’ antibiotics — a low dose of antibiotics that is mixed into the feed of healthy farm animals to promote faster growth.  Many scientists are concerned these practices may be linked to the new antibiotic-resistant ’superbugs’, such as MRSA and E. coli, because the more we’re exposed to antibiotics the less effective they are when we need them.

So are we.  

All Bell & Evans chickens are raised without antibiotics. Raised naturally in a low-stress environment, our Bell & Evans chickens start out healthier, so we have no need to pump our birds full of antibiotics throughout their lives. There are no antibiotics in their feed, their water, or even in the egg… ever.

Some producers say their chickens are antibiotic-free, but don’t be fooled.  It only means the chickens were antibiotic-free when they’re sold. All chickens must be antibiotic-free to be sold for human consumption.  It doesn’t mean they weren’t given antibiotics sometime in their life cycle. Some producers even try to get around the issue by injecting the egg before the chick hatches. Antibiotics are antibiotics no matter when they’re administered.

So to answer the question, yes, there is a big difference in chickens that are raised without antibiotics vs. those that are ‘antibiotic-free’. You can trust in Bell & Evans chicken, raised without antibiotics, to feed your family.

This is my last entry for the year. I wish you and your family all the best for the holidays and a healthy, happy new year. Please join me again in 2011 for more reflections on raising the excellent chicken