Meatpacker to shut down in wake of massive recall

23.feb.08
Wall Street Journal
David Kesmodel

marlerblog.com 

Anthony Magidow, general manager of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., which issued the biggest meat recall in U.S. history last week, was cited as telling The Wall Street Journal late Friday from the plant in Chino, Calif. that it probably will shut down permanently, adding, "I don't see any way we could reopen... we are a small private company," and cash has become tight. Among other problems, some customers stopped payment on checks they had sent the company for meat that is part of the recall of 143 million pounds of beef, he said.
Federal food-safety regulators were cited as saying Thursday that they intend to require that Hallmark/Westland, a leading supplier to the National School Lunch Program, pay for the costs associated with destroying and replacing meat submitted to the program.
Mr. Magidow, 46 years old, who has worked at the company for more than 15 years, was further quoted as saying, "If the USDA wants payment back, we're dead meat. We're done. There's no way we could pay it all back."
The company's president and owner, Steve Mendell, was unavailable to comment Friday, and the company's controller, Juan Acevedo, referred an interview request to Mr. Magidow.
Mr. Magidow said until the plant suspended operations, it was earning a modest profit on annual sales of roughly $100 million, noting, "It's a low profit-margin business."