Texas beef company plant barred from shipping beef to South Korea

A Swift Beef Company plant in Cactus, Texas, is not eligible to ship beef to South Korea, the US Department of Agriculture has said.

The USDA’s decision came soon after the country suspended some US beef imports because it detected the cattle-feed-additive zilpaterol in meat supplied by the company.

South Korea said on Wednesday that it had found zilpaterol, an animal growth enhancer, in 22 tonnes of beef from a work site of Swift Beef, a unit of JBS USA Holdings Inc. South Korea asked the United States to verify the cause of the contamination.

The USDA, in a notice from its Food Safety and Inspection Service, did not explain why the Cactus plant was no longer eligible to export to South Korea.

— Reuters