AP NewsBreak:
'Pink slime' maker halts some plants

[March 27, 2012]  LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- The company that makes "pink slime" on Monday suspended operations at three of four plants where the low-cost beef filler amid a public outcry over concern about the ingredient.

Beef Products Inc.'s director of food safety and quality assurance, Craig Letch, told The Associated Press about the operations suspensions at plants in Texas, Kansas an Iowa ahead of a public announcement about the plan. The company's plant at its Sioux City, S.D., headquarters will continue operations.

About 200 employees at plants in Amarillo, Garden City, Kan., and Waterloo, Iowa, will get full salary and benefits for 60 days.

Company officials will work to counter what they said was misinformation about the product.

"We feel like when people can start to understand the truth and reality then our business will come back," Letch said. "It's 100 percent beef."

The ammonia-treated additive known by the industry as "lean, finely textured beef" has been used for years but recently became a target of activists seeking to have it banned from supermarkets and school lunches. The U.S. Department of Agriculture decided to allow school districts to stop using it. Some retail chains have pulled products containing it.

The plant in Amarillo produced about 200,000 pounds a day, while the Kansas and Iowa plants produced about 350,000 pounds a day.

[Associated Press; By BETSY BLANEY]

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