Beef Product Inc. Will Close Waterloo Plant; 650 Jobs Will Be Lost Across Region

Beef Products Inc. officials announced it will shutdown processing plants in three states, including one in Waterloo, Iowa, due to the recent “” controversy, according to an article by the Gazette.

About 650 jobs will be lost in a number of cities when the plants close on May 25.

"Pink slime," or what the company calls "lean, finely textured beef," is bits of beef that are heated and treated with a small amount of ammonia.

"We will continue communicating the benefits of BPI's lean beef, but that process is much more difficult than (countering) the campaign to spread misinformation that brought us to this point," Rich Jochum, a company spokesperson, said in a statement. "While we had hoped to be able to resume operation at those plants, that is not going to be possible in the immediate future."

A tidal wave of social media attention inflated the controversy that started back in 2009 when a federal microbiologist first used the term “pink slime,”  according to the Associated Press.

The company came under fire again this past March when activists reheated the debate through social media.