Government Inaction

Over twenty years ago, Uli battled laws and regulations that were written by corporate breweries to limit competition from small microbreweries. Today he is fighting the same issues with regards to the meat industry. Our artisan butchery is subject to the same regulations and restrictions as large-scale slaughter and processing facilities. We appreciate that these regulations are meant to protect the consumer, but for a facility of our size they are more of a hindrance to the consumer: our Master Butcher spends more time filling out inane forms than crafting products for the consumer. In desperation Uli contacted the North Carolina’s US senator to see if he could help us navigate the minefield of threats and regulatory requirements. Sadly the Senator’s answer, “Hang in there, it is going to get worse,” was not what we had hoped for. In an attempt to increase awareness of the difficulties facing small businesses, here is Uli’s response to yet another instance of government inaction:

Dear Sir, 

As a representative of a Senator I am somewhat disappointed with your response to my issue. First of all, you have to surely agree that one Federal Inspector daily supervising our one-man artisan butchery is not an effective use of taxpayer’s money. If we have one inspector for one worker where does this leave the “Land of the Free?” We do not have this kind of scrutiny in our nuclear or chemical industry.
Secondly, the Senator is always reporting to his constituency that, as a Republican, he supports small business and fair trade. How can it be fair trade if we have a policy where a US business is inspected every day and is not allowed to operate if an inspector is not present while we import food from countries that our Government inspects once a year upon announcement? We are trying to create local jobs, support sustainable agriculture, revitalize family farms in eastern North Carolina and we’re struggling to accomplish all this while our Government allows un-inspected meats to come in by the container?

A perfect example was our attempt to make Prosciutto. Our Government does not allow us to air dry Prosciutto, but we can import Italian and Spanish Prosciutto, which has been air-dried in the country of origin where they do not have to comply with USDA’s HACCP requirements, etc.

Just to show you what we have to live with as small business: We had to install a costly 3 hour firewall, 120 ft by 36 ft high, because according to fire code a refrigerated meat processing room contains meat “which is combustible at 42 degrees F”. The stupidity is mind numbing! I know fire code is a State issue, but I want to impress upon you that as a small family owned business producing natural food, we have so far dealt with 14 Government agencies, from local to State to Federal. When we complained once to the Federal meat inspectors about their rules being unreasonable, the response from the agent was: You should have thought about this before you went under Federal inspection. Great! We have to apologize to a Federal inspector for trying to create business.

I had hoped that there would be a response from our elected Senator other than “hang in there, it is going to get worse.” Don’t get me wrong I tend to agree with this statement after all we have been through, but you must admit it is not very encouraging to watch our Country being swamped with imports, while our Government drowns small business with regulations and inspectors. This doesn’t protect anyone and only ensures that we cannot compete, not because we don’t want to, but because regulations are stacked against us and in favor of cheap imports.
Sincerely,
Uli Bennewitz