Mad cow disease

Mad about meat

While stock prices for burger and steak chains dipped, local beef eaters expressed little concern.

ST. PETERSBURG - The lunchtime line to buy shoulder steaks, neck bones and other beef cuts at The Meat House of St. Pete on Central Avenue ran 20 deep Wednesday. Lunch-hour diners relaxing outside the Checkers restaurant on Fourth Street N munched burgers with abandon.

At the Publix grocery store in downtown St. Petersburg, Katherine Keith mulled over beef roasts to serve for Christmas dinner.

"I think they protect us as best they can," Keith said of government inspectors. "And I don't put a lot of stock in every single thing I read."

Across the Tampa Bay area Wednesday, consumers seemed to shrug off the presumed infection of a single Holstein with mad cow disease in Washington state as a distant and isolated event.

Such normalcy came as a relief to area restaurants and groceries, which reported typical Christmas Eve traffic even as some publicly traded chains saw their stock take a minor beating on Wall Street.

Wendy's, McDonald's, Jack in the Box and Tampa's own Outback Steakhouse each suffered at least a 5 percent decline in stock price Wednesday. Checkers, the Tampa burger chain, saw its stock price fall 4 percent to $9.82 per share.

Many food companies walked a public relations tightrope Wednesday, a day after federal officials announced the discovery of a diseased cow in Mabton, Wash. They whispered to Wall Street that their beef was safe while adopting a less-said-the-better posture with customers. McDonald's, for example, made no mention of the Washington case on its Web site Wednesday. But in a terse news release, the company said, "This situation has absolutely no connection whatsoever to McDonald's or our suppliers."

Tyson Foods of Springdale, Ark., the world's largest meat processor, also used a news release to distance itself from the incident.

Jeannie Pierola, executive chef at Bern's Steak House, said the Tampa restaurant hadn't received any calls from worried customers and emphasized that all of its beef comes from ranches in either Nebraska or Colorado.

"We are just brimming with reservations tonight," Pierola said.

Food retailers aren't the only businesses at risk of economic disruption. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said the state hosts nearly 2-million head of cattle worth anywhere from $3-billion to $5-billion, depending on current market rates.

Data from the Florida Cattlemen's Association places the state 18th nationwide in terms of cattle head count.

Bronson said Florida works closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to monitor and limit animal disease. All livestock coming into the state must pass through one of 22 "interdiction stations" that check for a clean bill of veterinary health. None of the 1,291 head of cattle Florida has checked for mad cow disease since 2001 has tested positive.

"We feel fairly confident that our beef supply is safe, and we're working with USDA to make sure of that," he said.

Investor jitters were not without cause. With the government's investigation still open, it was not clear how the Washington cow contracted mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or whether other cattle might be infected. Meanwhile, South Korea, Japan and a number of other countries ordered an immediate, temporary ban on U.S. beef imports.

Still, analysts like Bryan Elliott of Raymond James & Associates said Wednesday's selloff of restaurant stocks presented an "excellent buying opportunity for the intermediate term." Chains that focus on seafood or poultry also got a bump from the news.

Analysts said the foreign bans on U.S. beef could create a temporary domestic glut, leading to lower beef prices.

Larry Fisher, a 59-year-old St. Peterburg resident who was picking up beef bones for his daughter's dog at Publix on Wednesday evening, couldn't care less what the markets say.

"I intend to eat beef for every day for the rest of my life," said Fisher, who grew up on a cattle farm in Ohio. "And if something's going to get me, I'd just as soon it be a steak as a bullet."

- Times staff writer Kris Hundley and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727 893-8751.

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