Mid-Michigan Dining

I don’t go out of my way looking for kosher meat products and after reading this story, it’s probably a good thing.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on May 12 raided Agriprocessors Inc.’s Postville, Iowa plant, arresting nearly 400 workers on immigration, identity theft and other charges. The company produces about half the country’s kosher beef and roughly 40 percent of its kosher chicken; the plant was temporarily shut by the raid, but has since reopened. The arrests were quickly followed by almost 300 plea deals by workers, most of whom were charged with using false identification.

While I somewhat feel sorry for the workers involved, (I said somewhat) I don’t feel sorry for the company.  It seems like we just can’t win this summer with food price.  High prices of feed and transportation and now this.  This line, however, pissed me off.

If the company can maintain production at the plant, its prices may still rise as it hires documented workers after the largest immigration raid in history, said Joe Regenstein, a food sciences professor at Cornell University.

Words just can’t describe the feeling.