Company admits sick cows went to market

WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- The president of a slaughterhouse closed by regulators backtracked on a statement that none of the crippled cows it slaughtered entered the U.S. food supply.

Steve Mendell, president of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., originally said in written testimony that while the cows a Humane Society video showed being pushed with forklifts and nudged with water sprays "should be treated humanely, and they were not, these cows were not harvested and they did not enter the food supply," the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

But when lawmakers on a House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee showed him a second video produced by the same undercover U.S. Humane Society employee, Mendell said at least two cows that were too sick to walk into the Southern California slaughterhouse had, in fact, entered the food supply, the Times reported.

"This is not the company I know," he said. "I couldn't believe it was my plant, until I saw the videos."

His appearance before the committee was the first time Mendell has spoken publicly since the U.S. Agriculture Department recalled a record 143 million pounds of beef and shut down the Chino, Calif., slaughterhouse in February, the newspaper reported.