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Tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode of Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast. Join Francine L. Shaw, the savvy CEO of Savvy Food Safety, and Matthew Regusci, compliance connoisseur and founder of Fostering Compliance, as they serve up the latest in food safety with a side of laughter.
Explore the ins and outs of food systems, responsible food practices, and food safety regulations. Stay informed about food safety awareness and the not-so-occasional food recall. Delve deep into the complexities of the food supply chain with our dynamic duo, who blend expert insights with a pinch of food safety humor. Whether you're knee-deep in the food safety industry or just passionate about what's on your plate, this podcast promises a fresh take on staying safe while eating well.
Expect candid conversations, personal anecdotes, and occasional guest appearances that spice up the discussion. Shaw and Regusci bring their combined decades of experience to the table, making each episode as informative as it is entertaining. From industry trends to must-know food safety news and regulations, they've got your back (and your lunch).
In essence, Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast is not just about imparting information; it's about fostering a culture of food safety. By shedding light on the intricacies of the food supply chain and the latest food safety news, it aims to promote awareness and encourage responsible food practices among consumers and industry professionals alike.
When it comes to food safety, knowledge is power, and a good laugh is the best seasoning. At the heart of every episode is one golden rule: Don't Eat Poop!
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Matt Regusci: As we look at markets now and into the future, we should explore every opportunity to help family farms and ranches succeed, Senator Hyde-Smith said. The DIRECT Act does just that. It would give meat and poultry producers a safe, straightforward way to sell to consumers directly by making federal regulations work for them, not against them.
The last thing our livestock producers need is more red tape. Like many states, Kansas has strong meat inspection standards that already meet federal requirements. By creating a simple exemption, the DIRECT Act uplifts our ranchers and empowers them to sell their high quality meat in innovative ways and across state lines.
intro: Everybody's gotta eat. And nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points. From the supply [00:01:00] chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine L. Shaw and Matt Regusci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule.
Don't. Eat. Poop. Don't eat poop.
Matt Regusci: Hello, hello, Francine. Hey Matt. I'm excited about today.
New and exciting things with Food Safety News.
Francine L Shaw: Yeah, very exciting things with Food Safety News.
Matt Regusci: Which is great.
Francine L Shaw: So, we'll Fun stuff.
Matt Regusci: Which is great. Fun stuff. Cause we're gonna, we need them to be around forever or else we're gonna have to like go search for content in a lot of different places.
Francine L Shaw: And we don't have time for that.
Matt Regusci: No, you and I do so many things.
Francine L Shaw: You have such a nice job. We don't have time for that.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, Food Safety News does a great job at curating our content. Thank you. Thank you for doing that.
Francine L Shaw: Their writers are amazing and they do [00:02:00] such a wonderful job of doing the research and, you know, writing content that, we need to keep them moving.
Matt Regusci: Speaking of which, we have an article that we want to discuss from Food Safety News. Surprise, surprise.
Francine L Shaw: We do.
Matt Regusci: It is fascinating. Really, truly, Food Safety News is posting stuff that nobody else posts about food safety. Like, we wouldn't be able to find things. I guess we could probably find something like this, but it would take a lot of work.
I'm not even quite sure how Dan Flynn got this article.
Francine L Shaw: It used to be much easier to find this information, but now a lot of it has been removed from the resources that I used to use. There's not as much available on the government websites as there once was. So it's a little bit harder to find than it used to be.
Of course, they figured it out. I don't have the time to dig.
Matt Regusci: No. Well, we're not investigative reporters.
Francine L Shaw: No, we're not. Though, let me [00:03:00] tell you, if there's something that I really want to know, I can find it.
Matt Regusci: True. Here's the point I'm making.
Francine L Shaw: Like, don't make me ever hunt you down, or you need to find something out, because.
Matt Regusci: We would.
Francine L Shaw: Bet your sweet butt, I'm gonna find it.
Matt Regusci: The amount of hours that we would have to spend, we would have to become the investigative reporters on this show, as well as the news commentators. If food safety news wasn't here, because we'd have to go curate our own stuff. And we just really just talk about Food Safety News most of the time.
So thank you. It's a great resource. Everybody support them selfishly, please. We are obviously going to become subscribers. So it's a exciting time.
Francine L Shaw: Do you remember my phone when I bought it back like a year or so ago, my phone kept shutting off. And they [00:04:00] wouldn't, the place I bought it, I don't want to even say what network it was, but the franchise that I bought it from wouldn't fix it.
And like every day at two o'clock, my phone would just shut off and I'd have to call them back to get it turned back. Do you remember that?
Matt Regusci: Yes. Yes. And this was, this was like Verizon, wasn't it?
Francine L Shaw: No, it was, it's AT& T because I had switched from Verizon and I was super pissed off.
Matt Regusci: Oh man. I've been a Verizon customer since, since BlackBerry ceased to exist, I think it, like I was a Nextel, then it went to AT& T, I was, I think it, I think it went to AT& T, then I was AT& T, and then when BlackBerry completely imploded, I was like, okay, I guess I'm moving to something else.
Francine L Shaw: So my husband talked me into switching because all the years we were married, he had two separate plans, which is ridiculous, but Verizon worked for me because of the travel. AT& T would not work for him where he works. So, we switched to go on the same plan, and then I got this [00:05:00] phone, and somehow, it had been reported as stolen.
I don't know what happened, but it had been reported as stolen, so it kept shutting off. They'd turn it back on, and 24 hours later, it shut off, and they wouldn't, they wouldn't fix it for me. Anyway, Melissa and I tracked down the owner of that franchise.
Matt Regusci: Oh, no, I mean, you tracked down the owner?
Francine L Shaw: The owner of that franchise.
Actually, I think it was the president of the franchise. Let me tell you, it didn't take long to get myself a new phone and get that situation fixed.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, but, okay, that investigative reporting that you did self centeredly for getting, making sure your phone was not fixed, that took a lot of time. Like that would take a lot of time for us to curate and do the investigative reporting on this. So thank you, Dan Flynn.
Francine L Shaw: More time than I, more time than I'd want to spend.
Matt Regusci: Thank you, Dan Flynn, [00:06:00] for the article that we are about to go through. And I think this is going to be a very, very fascinating conversation, Francine.
Francine L Shaw: I do too.
Matt Regusci: I don't think you and I are going to agree on everything on this one.
Francine L Shaw: I think we're going to disagree on a lot of it, but I think that we won't agree on all of it.
Matt Regusci: Okay.
So the article is by Dan Flynn on Food Safety News, November 7th, 2025, and it's GOP senators want to allow direct sales of state inspected meat and poultry on the web. Basically, it looks like bypassing like USDA inspected facilities, state inspected facilities could sell across state lines meat and poultry.
But I'm going to read a little bit further so everybody has context here. The state inspected meat and poultry sold on the internet could soon be crossing straight lines as federal government embraces direct to consumer sales. Direct to [00:07:00] consumer sales are favored by a nascent quote, Food Freedom movement for reducing food safety concerns.
Many state and local statutes use techniques in scaling back food safety regulations for raw milk and various homemade products. Which we see all the time, right? This raw milk thing. I think, I think we've probably done, I don't know, what, eight, nine episodes on raw milk?
Francine L Shaw: I don't want, I don't even want to know how many times we've mentioned raw milk on our podcast.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, well, you know what, that's a good point. If we include mentioning of raw milk in our episodes, we probably have like, 8 or 9 episodes specifically on raw milk, which to give context, this would be like, episode, I don't know, 140 something, so, it's like, more than 5 percent of our episodes have uh, about 5 percent of our episodes have raw milk, but if we were to add in mentioning of raw milk, like, this episode, [00:08:00] which is not going to be about raw milk, but we mentioned it, Lordy.
Probably 25%? It's a lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. Okay. So the senators who are sponsoring this new legislation are Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Marshall. Cindy Hyde-Smith is from Mississippi, Roger Marshall is from Kansas, and Tommy Tuberville from Alabama. They are sponsoring legislation to allow online direct to consumer meat and poultry sales for producers, processors, and small meat markets.
This bill would amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, FMIA, for people who follow acronyms, and the Poultry Products Inspection Act, PPIA, to allow interstate sale of certain state inspected meat in poultry products while claiming to preserve food safety standards.
As we look at markets now [00:09:00] and into the future, we should explore every opportunity to help family farms and ranches succeed, Senator Hyde-Smith said.
The DIRECT Act does just that. It would give meat and poultry producers a safe, straightforward way to sell to consumers directly by making federal regulations work for them, not against them. The last thing our livestock producers need is more red tape, said Senator Marshall. Like many states, Kansas has strong meat inspection standards that already meet federal requirements. By creating a simple exemption, the DIRECT Act uplifts our ranchers and empowers them to sell their high quality meat in innovative ways and across state lines.
So the amendment, they're amending the Retailer Exemption Act under federal meat and poultry inspection statutes.
So this would be S.3099 would allow processors and butchers of other retailers to sell normal retail [00:10:00] quantities 300 pounds of beef, 100 pounds of pork, 27. 5 pounds of lamb, of state inspected meat online direct to consumers across state lines. The Senators further claim that because DIRECT Act sales are conducted through e commerce, they would allow traceable and products could be easily recalled.
Francine L Shaw: They can't see my eye roll, can they?
Matt Regusci: Yeah, I can see that.
Francine L Shaw: So I'll tell them about it.
Matt Regusci: I can see that. Depending upon how well they keep their records, which is always, as a traceability consultant, that is basically the number one key.
Francine L Shaw: That was another eye roll on my part, yeah.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. The new internet sales would impact 27 states with state meat and poultry inspections, MPI, programs approved at At least equal to standards set under the FMIA and PPIA and subject [00:11:00] to USDA Safety Inspection Service to ensure safety protocols are met.
So, I mean, there's more to this article as well, but that kind of gives you the gist.
Basically, instead of having a USDA inspector in every single meat plant, in every single shift, at least one, some of them have multiple, you could use state inspections instead. So Alabama would use their inspectors for the meat, Mississippi would use theirs, Tennessee would use theirs, Illinois would use theirs, California would use theirs, and so those smaller meat plants would be able to use those state inspectors as opposed to federal inspectors.
Francine L Shaw: So the butchers already have a USDA inspector, don't they? They, they have a USDA inspector come in and inspect.
Matt Regusci: The big meatpacking plants do, and the butchers get their meat generally from meatpacker plants that have been USDA inspected.
Francine L Shaw: No, the small, the small butchers, you're telling me they don't have USDA [00:12:00] inspectors come in and inspect them when they sell meat to the public?
Matt Regusci: They are butchering USDA inspected meat from a USDA inspected plant. I worked with someone who created mobile ones of those, and it was USDA legal, like they had a mobile packing plant that had a USDA inspector in it, and they would go from place to place to place and do that, but you have to have a USDA inspector inspect the meat.
Francine L Shaw: I specifically remember one of our butchers that we used for our meat. Our meat was not inspected. It was our meat. They butchered it for us.
But I do remember them saying they also sold beef that was brought in to them. I specifically remember them saying to us that they had to have. And this was before I was doing what I do now. But I specifically remember them saying they had to have a USDA inspector come into their facility.
Matt Regusci: So I mean, if they are [00:13:00] doing that, then yes.
Francine L Shaw:
Matt Regusci: Correct. So right now, if you want to sell me to public. You have to have that meet USDA inspected by a USDA inspector.
So he, he may have just had enough volume or whatever that it made sense for him to do it like small time. But he still has to pay like 120K a year I think it is, to have USDA inspector or if he, if that USDA inspector was doing, going around to other smaller butcher shops. And one third of his time was at one butcher shop. Another third of his time was there, another third of his time was there. Then he was spending one third of that 120K minimum.
Francine L Shaw: So we have a lot of small butcher shops that sell beef and it's just not uncommon.
Matt Regusci: So what are your thoughts?
Francine L Shaw: I don't have a lot of faith in the system. We can't even sell pasta.
Matt Regusci: That doesn't have listeria in it. Yes.
Francine L Shaw: How the hell are we selling meat?
Matt Regusci: Yes.
Francine L Shaw: I mean, I'm sorry, [00:14:00] but we're lowering the food. What did it say?
Lower? What were the words? Lowering the food safety? What were the exact words?
Matt Regusci: The exact words were they're lowering federal expectations while preserving food safety standards because the 27 state departments that have a meat inspecting arm have to meet that there's 27 of them that meet or exceed the FDA's expectations.
Francine L Shaw: I mean, I'm all about helping the smaller farmers, the smaller businesses. I am all about doing whatever we can do to support them. I live in an area that, that, that is what we are. But we need to make sure that we do it safely before we have more listeria outbreaks from the raw milk. And raw milk again.
And, you know, then we move it to outbreaks from the beef that we're now allowing to cross state lines. And we can't [00:15:00] figure out where it came from because we both know what's going to happen with the traceability.
Matt Regusci: Yes, it depends. Okay. We have to break this down into a few things. One is we have to make some assumptions. Okay.
One is, do we assume that the USDA is actually doing a good job at these meat inspections? That's one assumption. That's one assumption.
The second assumption we need to make is, do we think that the state departments are going to be able to do an equal or better job than the USDA?
And the third is, are they going to do that less expensively?
And fourth is, Is the traceability going to be better?
We can start with the end. Do we think the traceability is going to be better? That is the potential. It could be better because this is direct consumer. So, assuming that they are tracking every lot, and they know what consumer is getting what meat from every single lot, and the traceability would be better because, just like what the [00:16:00] senators are saying, it's direct to consumer.
As opposed to JBS, packing plant, then that goes to a bunch of different retailers, a bunch of different butchers, uh, their own branded stuff, and then that goes, there could be like, different brokers in between, there could be so many different ways at which traceability gets lost in the supply chain of a JBS that runs 33 percent of the meat market in the United States. So a Brazilian company, and I have nothing against JBS, JBS was one of my biggest clients at WQS. We acted like the meat inspectors in each of their plants in South America. I would say we did a better job than the USDA, but their traceability, you know, JBS has to have a really tight ship for traceability, which they do. But once it leaves JBS's hands does the other people have good traceability? Being a traceability consultant, I can tell you probably not.
Whereas this is direct to [00:17:00] consumers, right? So there is the potential of being able to track that really quickly. The other thing is, there won't be a big outbreak, so that will make it harder to track. So if a consumer gets sick, chances are they're not going to get sick enough to go to the hospital. And if enough of them get sick enough to go to the hospital, will that be enough consumers to link it back to this particular meat place? I'm not sure with the way epidemiology works. But their traceability should be better if they are keeping track of what lots are going to each and every consumer.
It's a potential, but there's a lot of ifs in that, right? There's a lot of ifs in that.
I'm not sure the USDA is really doing that great of a job. When you're watching 175 chickens fly by you, and how many.
Francine L Shaw: That creates such a visual for me every time we talk about it.
We know how, how these, how they go by.
Matt Regusci: We need to do a cartoon. I know Darin Detwiler loves [00:18:00] cartoons and videos and making stuff. You know those little plastic chickens? I hate these things that you squeeze and it makes that like sound. I hate that sound. But you know what would be so funny? Is to have a video of 175 chickens a minute, flying around, and having someone dressed up as a USDA inspector trying to make those things make noise, that would be hilarious.
Francine L Shaw: I bet Darin or I could create one of those with AI. I bet we could.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, I mean, we've met a lot of these state and county and municipal health inspectors. I mean, you were one of them. You actually, I don't know, like, I think that they actually believe in their job.
And I wouldn't, I would see that they would take this seriously. As long as it, I would want it to not meet the USDA inspection expectations. I would want it to exceed it.
Francine L Shaw: Well, wait a minute. So this is the thing. Do they have enough state inspectors to add this to their plate? I was doing 300 inspections a [00:19:00] year, and that was five, six years ago, anyway, so do they have enough money to pay the inspector, and they're not making enough money now, I wouldn't make nearly enough money.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, so that's where it'll be interesting, because, this is where it'll be interesting, because, they're not gonna do it for free, right, so, I can see the state inspectors. So the state inspectors right now, already work on behalf of either the FDA or the USDA in most states. So a state inspector or a county inspector for supply chain does a lot of the stuff that the federal government wants to get done anyways.
And a lot of it is pay to play. So when the state inspector goes out and performs a USDA audit, for instance, or a FSMA type of inspection, the companies are actually paying them to perform it. So, this I can see, just like the USDA inspector guidelines, like those butchers are probably [00:20:00] going to be paying a state inspector some sort of contract to come out and inspect the meat.
Just like anybody else. So it's a revenue, probably a revenue neutral thing for the state departments. So instead of paying someone, let's say, instead of paying the federal government 120k a year to have a USDA inspector, they may pay somebody, they may pay the state the equivalent of like 70 or 80k a year.
And that may be split between two or three different companies or four companies, right? Depending on when they're butchering. And then it could be 10 companies. And so that cost could be separated based upon volumes or whatever of the meat that needs to be inspected. So it could end up creating better food safety.
Like I was telling you, I bought direct to consumer meat here in Colorado. So there's a butcher and it was in, it was in state lines. So it was completely legal. Local butcher would sell their meat to me directly. [00:21:00] It was frozen, packed. I did that up until they went out of business. And yeah, it was fine. So, but now it's just allowing it to then, if they want to cross state lines, then they have to be inspected by the state.
Francine L Shaw: And we have several butchers where I live that sell meat off the hoof. Real country, country girl here. I mean, that's, that's how they sell it, which is completely, again, legal. They're inspected and that's, they sell it. I mean, we buy ours, like, we might buy a quarter of beef or half a beef or, you know, if a relative is raising beef, we'll buy a side of beef, or a quarter of beef, or whatever.
Matt Regusci: Right, like a share of the beef.
Francine L Shaw: But this is different, which is different than what you're talking about. You went and bought somebody else's beef that you didn't know, and it was already cut up and processed, whereas we'll buy it before from somebody we know, and then, you know, we just tell them how we want it sliced or whatever and wrap it.[00:22:00]
Matt Regusci: Yeah, I think that's how they got around the law was I was buying a share of the steer.
Francine L Shaw: Okay. That's different, right? You bought it before it went to the, before it went to the butcher. A lot of butchers have the ability to sell it after it's been butchered, which they're allowed to do, they're inspected and all of that, so they can sell, you know, X number of steaks or whatever, because they've got their license to do that, whereas we're buying it from the person that has the beef, not from the butcher.
Matt Regusci: Right. And I mean, okay, so a poultry industry was getting all up in arms because somebody made them look bad because the USDA doesn't have to report salmonella findings unless it's like over 25 percent for some products, like the ground products.
And. Over, like, 12 percent of the carcasses, [00:23:00] they got all mad about this and they're like, we're like, okay, well, is that not true? Like why are you upset? Everybody knows there's salmonella in your product. And now we just get to know what is the allowable amount of salmonella per product? Like maybe we shouldn't have salmonella in the product.
I don't know.
Francine L Shaw: Maybe we should just eliminate it.
Matt Regusci: And then be so upset at the consumer advocacy groups talking about how, what percentage of your meat is allowable to have it.
My thoughts on this is the FDA and the USDA right now have like a monopoly on food safety in the United States and they're not doing that good of a job.
Francine L Shaw: I was going to say, I don't know that they have a monopoly on food safety.
Matt Regusci: My beliefs are monopolies are bad regardless if they're a company or if they're a government entity.
Francine L Shaw: Got a lot of food safety happening right now, but I mean, you know, [00:24:00] I think Boar's Head right now is really happy about pasta.
Matt Regusci: Oh boy.
Francine L Shaw: That's such dark humor. And the pasta situation is very scary because that's not over yet. And where's that going to end? And I don't know how we just ended up here from what we were talking about, but that's what happens because when you have ADHD and your mind runs wild.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So wait, let's use the Boar's Head thing as a example.
The state department was in there multiple times. We have what, 67 pages of, or 67 infractions, something like that. And they had no power to really shut that place down. If this allows the power of these inspectors to shut plants down or not allow them to sell that meat, I think this could have more teeth because there's less bureaucracy between the facility and the [00:25:00] regulators, and that could make the meat safer, potentially.
Francine L Shaw: But how many times are we told by inspectors? I don't care what type of inspector we're talking to, I don't care if it's local, state, government, we're told we are not allowed to shut the facility down. I'm like one of the few inspectors that I know of that was out there shutting places down and threatening to be sued regularly.
Matt Regusci: And this is where, like, some of these states that we're talking about, like, uh, Mississippi, not Kansas, really, but Alabama, some of these southern states, a huge part of their revenue, Tennessee would be, like, another one, a huge part of their revenue comes from poultry and beef. Probably in that order. And will the state inspectors be allowed to shut down an entity that is employing so many people, is doing all, you know, having [00:26:00] such a contribution to the actual economy of that state? I think it's to be determined.
It's not like they're getting shut down now. Boar's Head was still allowed to poison people for, for months and months after terrible inspections. So, I don't know.
Francine L Shaw: And not even taking corrective actions. It's the same violations over and over and over again. It was insane. It was crazy.
And I do want to say like the reason I was, I believe the reason that I was able to do what I was able to do isn't because I was some kind of wonderful. It's because I was hired because they didn't have enough inspectors and I was hired as an independent contractor. So as an independent contractor, I was taking that risk myself for my company, not for any other entity.
It was like just me out there doing my thing and my company was taking that risk and it was just like, sue me. [00:27:00] Sue me.
Matt Regusci: Right, right. Do you want this to go to court? Cause I don't think this is going to look good.
It is a huge break. Maybe not a huge break. It is a crack. If this bill passes, if this amendment passes, it is a crack in the USDA and FDA's armor.
Mainly the USDA. Cause this, we're talking about meat here, so this is not the FDA. This is a crack in the USDA's armor and a crack in the USDA's monopoly over control of USDA inspected meat.
One of my biggest complaints about, I have a lot of complaints about the USDA inspections of meat, but one of my biggest complaints would probably be surprising to a lot of people. It's not just the food safety aspect of my complaint with the USDA's monopoly over this, it's the consolidation aspect of it.
So, what happens? In order for you to sell meat that has been butchered, it has to be USDA inspected. In order [00:28:00] to do that, these meat companies have to pay a minimum of 120k a year to a USDA inspector or to the USDA for the inspector for every shift. That's minimum. Right? So if you have multiple shifts, you know, you have multiple inspectors, you have that, it grows exponentially, which is creative consolidation.
Francine L Shaw: So three shifts, three inspectors, 360, 000 a year. Minimum.
Matt Regusci: Yes.
Francine L Shaw: Right. Because you vacation, whatever it could be, 480.
Matt Regusci: Right, and that's right off the top. That is a direct expense against revenue. You have to be making a lot of meat, you have to be butchering a lot of meat to be able to afford that and still be in business. It is a huge prohibitive business expense that I don't think really has any redeeming value because people can still get sick with, with salmonella every single time.
They're inspecting the quality [00:29:00] of the meat, not the safety of the meat. And so that's different.
Francine L Shaw: Which is, that's a huge misconception, right?
Matt Regusci: Yes. They say preserving food safety standards in this law, but it's really quality expectations, not food safety expectations of what the USDA is doing. They are grading the meat.
Is this prime? Is this choice? Is this blah blah blah? So the reason why JBS could be hacked by Russia, Russians, And during COVID and meat prices screamed up catastrophically for the nation is because every single week that USD, that JBS was down because of that hacking that happened every single week meant one third of our meat supply was no longer able to be on our shelves.
That is actually a bigger threat to food security than [00:30:00] even the safety is. So the government through this has created consolidation that has allowed huge, huge, huge meat companies to control the US market. And we don't talk enough about that. And I think it's directly because of the USDA.
Francine L Shaw: Well, and we don't talk about it because consumers don't know that, that they don't. They don't know that.
Matt Regusci: And so if state departments are able to provide the quality inspections and also are able to provide food safety inspections simultaneously, maybe not simultaneously, maybe there's somebody else. And so part of this contract is food safety and quality with the state departments and they are allowed to allow smaller butchers to grow and compete.
I don't think that's a bad thing for food security in the United States.
Francine L Shaw: And how many consumers do you think know that most of our beef does not come from the U. S.?
Matt Regusci: Most of our beef comes from [00:31:00] the U. S. We have a lot of importers into the United States, but most of the meat is here. International companies have meat packing plants here in the United States.
JBS is a Brazilian company, but they have, they have a lot of meat.
Francine L Shaw: But their, their beef is here.
Matt Regusci: Yes, they do import beef from Brazil, but not that much. Like the beef import. I think our number one beef importer into the United States is from Australia or New Zealand.
Francine L Shaw: Well, that's far away. Yeah, but I think it's because it's really good.
Matt Regusci: Now, I'm curious. I was looking at this statistic a few weeks ago, just because I'm a frickin nerd.
Francine L Shaw: We look up stuff.
Matt Regusci: The U. S. I know. The thing's like, gosh, we have republished our text thread. In the U. S., imports make up a relatively small portion of the total beef supply, generally less than 15 percent of domestic consumption.
Francine L Shaw: The largest importers of U. S. beef are South Korea, Japan, [00:32:00] and China.
Matt Regusci: Importers, not exporters. Some major companies that supply beef to the U. S. include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. The other countries you were saying are people who, uh, countries that buy meat from the U. S.
Francine L Shaw: No, no, no, I was talking sent.
Bring in. That's an import. Send it to us.
Matt Regusci: We send products to China.
Francine L Shaw: I'm not talking about where we send it to people that send it to us. Whose meat are we eating?
Matt Regusci: We are eating the 15, the vast majority of the, the 15th percent that we consume domestically. Come from Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil, Uruguay as well.
Francine L Shaw: Oh, I'm reading this backwards, I'm sorry, I'm reading this backwards, I'm sorry.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Francine L Shaw: Just having a true blonde moment there.
Matt Regusci: But we're, we're increasing this, Brazil is like one of the biggest.
Francine L Shaw: I'm going to have offended somebody by saying that I was having a blonde moment, but [00:33:00] it's all good.
Matt Regusci: Brazil beef is so good, I like Brazilian beef, I like beef.
Francine L Shaw: So do I, I'm, I am a definite meat eater, and if I go too long without eating beef, it's like, I will crave beef.
Matt Regusci: Oh, yeah, me too.
I'm like, go get me some steak or tri tip or something like that.
Francine L Shaw: Like, I need, like, a steak or something. A steak, a burger, something. I know you, you tease me a lot about my size, but I eat . Like I'm not, I'm not afraid to eat food. I just happen to like salad, Though it terrifies me to eat it lately.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, so there you go.
I don't know if this is gonna pass because I'm sure all the meat lobbies are gonna be on this like white on rice. Because this is a huge, this is a chink against not just the USDA's armor of the monopoly, but it's also a chink against the top meat producers in their monopoly armor. They don't want small meat [00:34:00] companies competing against them, not at all.
Francine L Shaw: Well, and the meat from those places is much better. Yes. The small meat producers, you know, the family run businesses. And there's such a difference in the taste and the quality of these small butcher shops. As opposed to in the, you know, when you know where you're buying your beef, as opposed to going to the grocery store and buying your meat, that's, you know, wrapped in this plastic wrap that you're picking up and taking it is, it's just a huge difference in the taste and the quality of the meat.
Matt Regusci: Yes. And there was a study that was done that showed that there was like a bunch of phthalates on the meat coming to Whole Foods versus this other butcher. They assume it would, because of the disinfectant that's put on the carcass and it's wrapped in plastic wrap. They assumed that the phthalates from the plastic wrap [00:35:00] were being decomposed onto the meat via the disinfectant that was breaking it down.
So more studies are going to have to be done on that, but you're getting contamination as well.
Francine L Shaw: I don't think I've bought meat at the grocery store in probably 40 years.
Matt Regusci: Oh, I do. I totally do. Costco.
Francine L Shaw: Chicken. We purchase chicken from the grocery store, but most of our pork, every now and then Tim's dad will grab pork from a bunch of pork and give us some of that, but most of like our pork and our beef, we buy off the hoof.
Matt Regusci: Most of the meat that we buy comes from the, from the grocery store. We will do like the shares of stuff from local providers. But we have such a huge family. You can buy a whole. Yeah, we do, but then there's like, when you do that, there's like all this different types of meat that we don't really use.
Francine L Shaw: You can get a cut however you want to.[00:36:00]
Matt Regusci: I know, but when you buy a whole entire cow, there are a lot of cuts on that cow.
Francine L Shaw: Get the whole thing ground into hamburger if you want.
Matt Regusci: That's true, that's true. That's true.
Francine L Shaw: Just grind it all into burger. They'd be like, what? You want a thousand pounds of burger?
Matt Regusci: I'm like, I do not need 500 pounds of stew meat.
Francine L Shaw: So I get a hundred pounds of stew meat and, you know, 900 pounds of burger.
Matt Regusci: And then the steaks and then the ribs and then the, yeah, yeah. Good call. I'll just have a grounded, uh, hamburger. That's, we go through a lot of hamburger in our house.
Francine L Shaw: Well, I'm assuming, I mean, because. Why not? It's easy. It's quick.
But yeah, you could have whatever you wanted ground into burger. You want those ribeyes ground into, you want that filet ground into burger? Yep.
Matt Regusci: No, definitely do not want that ground into burger. But I will buy like, um, like at [00:37:00] Costco or whatever, I will buy the whole roast and then cut it into steaks.
Like I'll buy the whole filet, I'll buy the whole prime rib and then cut it into ribeyes or whatever. That's a good point, Francine. I will buy my next share. I'm just going to be. I do not need that much stew meat. Give me a lot more hamburger.
Francine L Shaw: Cut that into burger. Put that stew meat, grind it into burger.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, that's a really good point.
Francine L Shaw: I'm here for you, Matt. Call me. Call me. I'm here for you.
Matt Regusci: All right, on that note, we'll have to check to see if this passes and do another episode and see what the states are planning on doing because this is really interesting. Bye. Don't eat poop.