USDA shuts down insanitary California slaughterhouse

(http://www.latimes.com) According the Los Angeles Times, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided to close a beef slaughterhouse on Monday after it failed to meet sanitation standards.

The slaughterhouse, Central Valley Meat Co. in Hanford, California, will not be allowed to resume operations until coming up with a plan to correct its violations.

This is the same company that was shut down for a week in 2012 after Compassion Over Killing, an animal rights group, sent videos to the USDA of employees at the facility torturing cows with electric prods and by spraying them with hot water. Also, due to possible contamination with small pieces of plastic, the company had to recall 58,000 pounds of beef that would have been eaten by school children last September.

"[The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service] withdrew our inspectors and suspended operations due to insanitary conditions at the establishment. The plant's suspension will be lifted once we receive adequate assurances of corrective action," the agency said in a statement Tuesday.