Most Recent Posts

With the current bloom of artisanal small-batch producers across the country, you'd think that all you need to start up a new food business is a good idea and a lot of gumption. And for the most part, that's true. But when it comes to artisanal producers working with meat, you also need something else: a Hazards Analysis and Critical Control Points plan. Or, if you will, a HACCP.

A HACCP (pronounced, by those in the industry, as HASSup) aims to accomplish the admirable goal of keeping our food supply safe by planning out critical control points and monitoring and hazard analysis and all that fun stuff, making sure that you don't get a dose of Listeria along with your saucisson sec.

For dry-cured meats, which never get a turn in the bacteria-killing heat of the oven, and rely instead on critical control of pH and moisture levels, this is especially important. It may seem surprising that there isn't one universally required procedure. But that's both the bane and beauty of the HACCP.

"The USDA Food Safety Inspection Service wants you to demonstrate that the food you make is safe," explains Arion Thiboumery, founder of the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network. "They put out performance standards, but they don't tell you how. People have tried a lot of different ways." This focus on results, rather than process, means that as long as you meet the safety requirements at the critical control points, you have some leeway in how you get there.

"The brilliance behind a HACCP plan is that it's so flexible," extols Elias Cairo, the co-founder of Portland's Olympic Provisions, the first USDA-certified charcuterie in Oregon. "The lack of guidelines lets you produce anything you want, in exactly the way that you want, as long as you can prove that it's safe."

Cairo is clearly a big fan of the HACCP (and the USDA in general), whose adaptability has allowed him to produce cured meats that are winning fans across the country. But this flexibility comes at a cost.

Because of the sausage world's variation in process and recipe, each HACCP is uniquely tailored to each small-batch producer's process. Sausage-makers have to spend months and months familiarizing themselves with the scientific literature, taking classes and exams and providing the USDA documentation for the path they're taking — or pay significant money to consultants to come up with a plan for them, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

And once they've paid (in money or sweat) for these plans, they don't necessarily want to share their trade secrets. But one sausage maker — Underground Meats, of Madison, Wis. — is looking to establish a new model, by developing (via Kickstarter) an open source HACCP plan template for all to use.

"I think this is a large barrier to people entering the market, and if we remove it, we'll see really good products coming out," hopes Underground Meat's Jonny Hunter.

If the project's funding goal is reached, he aims to work with a third party company (possibly the University of Wisconsin) to lay out the process, and then publish the results under a Creative Commons license. "The craft is something that takes time, but the knowledge of the safety side is something that should just be open and free."

Hunter's mission seems to have struck a nerve in the artisanal meat community — as of this writing, the campaign is nearly three-fourths of the way to its $40,000 goal.

Arion Thiboumery, of the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network, notes that with the age of the average butcher, like the age of the average farmer, continuing to go up every year, removing barriers to entry for new, young producers could revitalize the industry.

"I think it would be consistent with the mission of a land grant institution — let's use public money to solve a problem that we all agree should be solved."

But some, like Olympic Provisions' Elias Cairo, are a bit skeptical as to how it'll play out. The HACCP must be so specific that it'd be hard to universalize a sort of "bible" — beyond providing already-available general information on critical control points.

But Underground Meat's Jonny Hunter thinks that while it won't be a one-size-fits-all fix, the control points, steps, and scientific justifications will be a valuable jumping-off point. "People would have to tailor it individually — nobody would be able to just download it from the Internet, it needs to be specific. But if I would have had this five years ago, it would have saved me so much time."

One new option he'll soon have is to buy insurance through Covered California's SHOP exchange. SHOP stands for for Small Business Health Options Program. It's California's version of a small-business insurance program that is part of the federal Affordable Care Act. The state has 500,000 small businesses.

All states are offering similar small-business exchanges. These are marketplaces for employers with 50 or fewer full time workers, and are designed to offer more affordable insurance to mom-and-pop businesses that have long paid more than large companies for the same level of coverage.

"Small businesses are horribly disadvantaged in terms of being able to purchase insurance," says Peter Harbage, president of the Sacramento-based health policy firm Harbage Consulting. "If they're even able to purchase it, they have to pay more and they get less."

Harbage says that not only will SHOP plans offer competitive prices, they will also offer tax benefits that for some smaller companies might cut premium prices in half.

But John Kabateck is not so optimistic. He is California executive director for the National Federation of Independent Business, and represents more than 22,000 small businesses in California.

"There are a lot of uncertainties as it relates to the law," he says. "We are hopeful that they will find affordable coverage within the exchange. We are hopeful they will have the ability to pick and choose in the marketplace."

Planet Money

One Key Thing No One Knows About Obamacare

The health benefits of eating fish are pretty well-known. A lean source of protein, fish can be a rich source of healthful omega-3 fatty acids and has been shown to benefit heart, eye and brain health.

But for years, pregnant women have been advised to go easy on the fish. The U.S. government advises expecting mothers to eat no more than 12 ounces of seafood like salmon and shrimp, and to steer absolutely clear of bigger catch like swordfish and shark. The reason for this caution: concerns that mercury, found in nearly all seafood, could harm their babies' developing brains.

Now, fresh research suggests that advice might have been too restrictive.

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England have found that eating fish accounts for only 7 percent of the mercury in a person's body. "That was much lower than people have assumed," lead researcher Jean Golding tells The Salt. "It really implies that if women are worried about mercury affecting their children, stopping eating fish will not be beneficial."

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, analyzed 103 types of food and drink items consumed by over 4,000 pregnant women. The team at Bristol sent blood samples from the expecting mothers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for analysis.

Even if a person were to avoid eating all 103 items analyzed, the researchers concluded, using regression analysis, that would only lower their blood mercury content by 17 percent.

Your Health

Getting Brain Food Straight from the Source

President Obama has been railing against Republicans in Congress nearly every day this week.

"One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government shut down major parts of the government," he said in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday. "All because they didn't like one law."

He's expected to take that message on the road on Thursday, visiting a construction company in Maryland to talk about the impact of the shutdown on the economy.

And that finger-pointing at Republicans is sure to be part of his speech again.

Obama's rhetoric in this conflict is a shift from some of his earlier complaints about Congress — and that's having a positive effect on Democrats.

Talking about his adversaries who work in the Capitol in 2011, for example, he characterized lawmakers as lazy, saying "there shouldn't be any reason for Congress to drag its feet."

In 2010, he described them as wasteful. "Congress has provided unrequested money for more C-17s that the Pentagon doesn't want or need," he said.

In those speeches, the enemy was not specifically the House or the Senate, not Republicans or Democrats. Often it was just "Congress."

"There's a long and honorable tradition going back to Harry Truman of running against the Congress," says former Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman of Delaware.

That tactic worked for Obama — he was running for re-election at the time. But it rankled congressional Democrats.

"Obviously, if you're part of the criticism, you don't feel good about it," Kaufman says. "I mean, one of the things that really bothers Democrats in the Senate is ... when people say, 'Well, it's the Republicans and the Democrats — it's all of you.' "

Back then, Obama was also trying to reach a grand bargain with Republicans. Singling them out as the enemy wouldn't have done much good. So he lumped in his own party as part of the problem.

Now the situation has changed dramatically, and so has Obama's rhetoric. The president does not pass up any chance to single out his adversaries as a minority within the GOP.

Related NPR Stories

It's All Politics

Unable To Stop Shutdown, Obama Pins Blame On GOP