Ky. Chicken Processing Plant Resumes Operations

Operations have resumed at a chicken processing plant in western Kentucky where work was suspended last week after an inspection.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection raised an unspecified concern at Perdue Farms’ plant in Cromwell, which prepared chicken served to Queen Elizabeth II recently. The facility is in Ohio County midway between Owensboro and Bowling Green.

Julie DeYoung, vice president for corporate communications in Perdue’s headquarters in Salisbury, Md., said the USDA had allowed the plant to begin processing chickens into meat again on Sunday night.

“We submitted our responses to the USDA’s questions, and they accepted them,” DeYoung said. She would not elaborate on what changes the USDA required before allowing operations to resume.

“I don’t have any of that detail,” she said.

The USDA had ordered the processing of live chickens into meat to cease on May 17. A USDA official would not specify what concerns the inspector had.

May 18 was the only full workday affected by the processing shutdown.

Information from: Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer,
http://www.messenger-inquirer.com