The Best Dressed Chicken, Inc.: Non-Compliance to Poultry Good Commercial Practices in 2021 (USDA)

381.65(b)

While performing a GCP task at P47016 (The Best Dressed Chicken) during the third shift beginning the evening of July 6 and extending into the morning hours of July 7, 2021, I observed the following issues which ultimately led in the issuance of a noncompliance and a regulatory control action: At 22:39 while observing a fecal zero tolerance check in the back right corner of the evisceration room near the rehang table, I noted a re hang employee discard a cadaver into the condemn barrel behind him. I proceeded to check the barrel where I found 5 cadavers 3 of which still had the head attached and no cervical cut present. I immediately went outside and into the feather picking room where I could observe stunning, killing machine and scalder. I saw Mr. REDACTED (third shift evisceration supervisor) and another employee looking at the kill machine through the cut out in the front right corner of the feather picking room. I observed the live hang line for 10 minutes from a position where the line comes around a turn and heads for the hock cutter. It was 22:44 when I began looking for cadavers. During this period, I observed 4 bright red carcasses with the head still present which were a deep purple color that had no cervical cut present and 15 other cadavers. At 22:50 live hang stopped hanging birds, but I continued to watch as the remainder of birds passed my position and noted 3 more cadavers. At 22:54, once there were no more birds on the shackles, I went outside and had a discussion about my observations with Mr. REDACTED. I showed him the tally of cadavers I had recorded on my notepad. I also made him aware that IPP on July 6 first shift had made observations of several cadavers. He told me that the normal back up killer was gone and that he had stopped the line to add another back up killer and talk to them. At 00:23 while in the evisceration room near the rehang table, I saw employees discard 3 cadavers into the condemn barrels. I went to the barrel to extract the birds. 1 carcass still had the head attached with no cervical cut. Again, I proceeded to the feather picking room to monitor the live hang line. I watched from the point where the line turns and goes to the hock cutter from 0:36-0:41 and counted 6 more cadavers. 3 with the head still attached and either a superficial laceration in the skin or no cut at all. I did note at this time that several of the shackles passing by had more than 1 set of hocks stuck in them. This had been an issue documented in a MOI last week that was deemed to be the cause of improper alignment in the kill machine. The establishment had corrected this issue by having 2-3 employees manually removing paws that were missed by the unloader. So, I went around to live hang to see how many employees were removing paws from the shackles and found only 1 employee. At 1:40-1:55 CSI REDACTED observed 7 cadavers while monitoring the live hang line in the feather picking room. He counted 5 that had the heads still attached with no cervical cuts. At 3:04-3:09 I returned to the feather picking room to monitor for cadavers and observed 4 more. 2 had heads still attached with a superficial cut that had not transected the vein. I observed the stunned birds approaching the kill machine. I noted several instances where the drooping wing of the bird behind would get drawn into the wheel with the head of the bird in front of it which could be preventing the proper cut. I double checked that there was a back up killer in place and checked the line speed was at REDACTED birds per minute. I went to tell Mr. REDACTED of my findings, but he was busy dealing with other equipment issues. I did note while on the evisceration floor at that time, the lead trimmer took a cadaver to his office to show him. At 6:09-6:14 I returned to the feather picking room to monitor for cadavers. I saw 2 cadavers during this time frame. At 6:18 while standing directly in front of the kill machine, I noted a bird that was hanging by one leg who was fully conscious. As it approached the guide rails for the killing machine, its free leg not its head was directed to the slicing blade. That leg was cut approximately half- way through the bone above the hock. The bird proceeded away from me towards back up killers. At this point, I saw another conscious bird hung by only 1 leg approaching the guide rail for the killing machine. It was approximately 6-8 birds behind the first conscious bird. This bird, as well had its free leg directed to the rotating blade instead of the head and suffered a half thickness cut to its leg just above the hock while fully conscious. The first bird was now on the line behind me and was still fully awake with head retracted up towards its body. I saw it blinking as it rounded the corner avoided the head puller and went into the scalder alive. The second bird then went by in a similar manner. I notified employees in live hang to stop hanging and proceeded to apply U.S. Rejected tag number B38 093365 to the bird dumper. I found Mr. REDACTED to notify him of my actions and told him of the incident. I also informed Mr. REDACTED (first shift evisceration supervisor) of the noncompliance and regulatory control action. The establishment was not in compliance with 9CFR 381.65(b) which requires that poultry be slaughtered in accordance with good commercial practices in a manner that will result in thorough bleeding of carcasses and ensure that breathing has stopped prior to scalding. The slaughter process was not in control despite any corrective measures the establishment took, cadavers persisted throughout the shift.