Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Bush Restricts Meat Packer's Product Safety Efforts

The Bush administration abandoned its free market diatribe in its efforts to stop a meat packer from testing all its cows for Mad Cow Disease. While the Japanese understand 100% inspection is not a way to ensure quality, it does prevent some bad products from getting out the door. The best method is to design in quality in the production process and continually improve it.

While company management may be at different levels of the quality spectrum, the country in which they operate has a rich history of product differentiation and advertising. The Bush team's holding back several meat packers from marketing their beef as "Mad Cow free" or "100% tested" seems at odd with his stated free market ideals of voluntary compliance.

A recent court judgment gave the company the right to conduct the testing but the government may appeal. Stay tuned for life down the Bush rabbit hole!

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