Pink Slime Plants Will Nearly Be Dead By End Of May

The Pink Slime controversy has not been good news for Beef Products Inc. which halted work at 75% of its production plants in March as major grocers and other buys abandoned the filler product following a threatened boycott from customers and concerns over the products health standards.

Now Beef Products, Inc. has announced plans to shut down nearly all of its pink slime producing plants by the end of May, signaling the end of the products lifeline and the loss of nearly 650 jobs in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo, Iowa.

The company will however leave one plant open in South Sioux City, Nebraska, however that plant will run at a reduced capacity.

Based out of South Dakota, Beef Product, Inc. said the closures were based on “unfounded attacks” over its “lean, finely textured beef.”

BPI says it will not discuss the financial distress the closures will put on the company, only acknowledging that it will take a “substantial hit” from the closures.

Speaking of the closures Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, apparently a fan of eating pink slime, remarked:

“This is a sad day for the state of Iowa. Workers will go home to their families and will soon be without a job, all because some media on the coasts decided to unfairly and viciously smear the product they so proudly produced.”

“Proudly producing” a product of course doesn’t make it good for you or safe for long-term consumption. In any case the production of pink slime appears to be ending its lifecycle, perhaps for good.