The ranks of Jakarta Police and South Jakarta Livestock and Fishery Sub-Department raided a meat grinder factory at Cipete Market, South Jakarta, Wednesday (12/12). The raid was conducted because the factory has mixed beef with pork to be processed as meatball.
According to Head of Maintenance and Supervision Section for South Jakarta Livestock and Fishery Sub-Department, Nurhasan, the raid was conducted based on local residents’ report. Before raiding the factory, his ranks have monitored and collected the factory data for three weeks.
“This factory often used by meatball sellers to grind beef and pork to be processed as meatball. We have conducted investigation to collect evidences. After getting the meat samples and testing them in the lab, the result is positively containing pork,” he stated, Wednesday (12/12).
The raid itself was conducted around 5 AM this early morning. “We found 50 kilograms of pork in the freezer and 15 kilograms of grind mixed-meat. The factory owner is identified as Eka Prayitno. We also secured three workers and two meatball sellers for questioning,” he explained.
Nurhasan disclosed that the factory owner was deliberately grinding beef and pork to get higher income. “This business has been ongoing since two years, yet we don’t know when they first grind the meat. Now, we closed this business and seized the goods inside the factory,” he asserted.
Even so, there has been no legal action taken against the factory owner. “The owner only has to report daily until the investigation has reached the next step,” added Nurhasan.
Based on beritajakarta.com observations this afternoon, the meat grinder factory is still closed. Several employees were seen tyding the tools. The place with the dimension of 3x4 meters does not have good lighting. It is located in between furniture and rice peddlers’ kiosks.
Ahmad (45), an owner of cigarette kiosk near the meat grinder factory, revealed the factory did often selling cheap meat. For frozen meat, it was sold only Rp 40 thousand per kilogram. “Originally, the price of beef is skyrocketing. At dawn, there was a lot of commotion coming from the factory. It seemed the raid was conducted just before I opened my kiosk. Officials wearing governmental employees (PNS) uniform were seen confiscating the meat from the factory,” he uttered.