WASHINGTON - Quality Meats Inc, a Utah meat processing company, agreed to oust an executive whothreatened federal meat inspectors, U.S. Agriculture Department said Friday.
The agreement requires Ray Faddis, a former officer of the cmpany and the father of Quality Meat's president and vice president, to "be completely divested of all operational and managerial involvement with the firm," the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement.
Quality Meats is a successor of Murray Meats of Salt Lake City.
In 1992, the USDA suspended inspection at the company because of threats, intimidation and interference by the elder Faddis with the work of federal meat inspectors at the plant.
A spokeswoman for the FSIS was not immediately available to elaborate on the agreement.
The agreement between the company and the USDA means that federal meat inspectors will return to the plant, the agency said.
For the past four years, Quality Meats has been under the supervision of Utah state meat inspectors, a company spokesman said. Quality Meats processes 2,000 to 3,000 pounds of meat each day.
Quality Meats also agreed to maintain complete written records, to not hire anyone convicted of a felony or more than one misdemeanor, and to restrict employees from threatening or interfering with meat inspectors, the statement said. Quality Meats said it would also submit proposed enforcement procedures to the USDA for approval to ensure that assaults and intimidation of meat inspectors do not happen again.
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