There is a bunch of fresh meat inside hundreds of grocery stores all across the US. I have never, ever, been inside a grocery store in my life and have seen meat not USDA prime.
First off who is actually rating this meat? I cannot fathom that every farm is shipping their meat to an USDA lab where each carcass is tested, graded, then sent to the grocer/butcher.
So how does meat actually get its grade? What happens to meat that doesn’t pass? And how does the consumer actually believe that every cut of meat truly *is* being inspected and that the “USDA” sticker isn’t just the equivalent of slapping a meaningless “organic” label on the package.
In: Economics
One I can actually answer. At every meat processing plant, there are FDA inspectors. Some have many. Their job is to ensure the plant is clean, animals are disease free, and to grade the meat. There will literally be an inspector that will grade and stamp the meat as it comes out of the slaughterhouse.
I worked at a processing plant just out of high school for a few months. Hated every minute of it. But I have respect for the FDA inspectors.
One time, while I was working a piece, of meat fell on the floor. FDA inspector (whose job it was to constantly walk the floor) saw it and stopped the line. When he hits the button, all work on all stations stops until whatever is wrong is fixed. I heard it cost like $10,000 for every minute the line stopped. And that was 30+ years ago. The meat is picked up and taken to a cleaning station to be washed and inspected by the FDA, then put back on the line.
Oh, if you think it is gross that meat hit the floor and put back into production. The whole plant is washed and sanitized every day. You can’t even walk onto the floor without stepping into a sanitizer solution.
Edit: not every cut of meat is inspected, but every cow is. So when we processed, we would do all select cows for x amount of head, then we’d run choice for x amount of head, etc. You might run 200 heads of select, that’s 400 sides and a lot of that is processed as hamburger, then you’d do 500 head of choice and then maybe 100 head of prime.
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