2 Sisters to resume production at West Bromwich plant

2 Sisters Food Group is preparing to resume operations at its poultry plant in West Bromwich, U.K., after the facility has spent more than a month offline.

Nadia Jasmine, Freeimages.com
Nadia Jasmine, Freeimages.com

2 Sisters Food Group is preparing to resume operations at its poultry plant in West Bromwich, U.K., after the facility has spent more than a month offline.

The company suspended operations there following reports from The Guardian about food safety breaches at the facility. The Guardian alleged that the company had:

  • Committed hygiene failures, including picking chicken meat off of the floor and placing it back on a conveyor
  • Manipulated slaughter date labels to make the meat seem fresher than it really was
  • Repackaged meat that had been returned from other stores with incorrect dates printed on labels
  • Mixed older poultry meat with newer poultry meat

The company, on its website, stated that during the time the poultry plant was not in operation, plant personnel were to be retrained on all food safety and quality management systems, and that it would resume production at the plant when the company felt that adequate training had been provided.

In addition to 2 Sisters Food Group launching an internal investigation on the situation, the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) also conducted an investigation. 2 Sisters Food Group, at the time, stated that the probe revealed some “isolated instances of non-compliance with our own quality management systems, but the FSA did not identify any breaches.

A newer report from The Guardian stated that “significant changes” had made at the plant and full-time FSA officials would oversee procedures at the facility.

Ranjit Boparan, the owner of 2 Sisters Food Group, was summoned to appear before the House of Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee. He apologized for the lack of confidence in food safety that the scandal had caused, but also assured the committee that 2 Sisters has high food safety standards and invited committee members to visit the company’s facilities, announced or unannounced, to view the operations themselves.

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