Tester to Taco Bell: 'Here’s the beef'

Never one to miss an opportunity to promote his home-state cattle ranchers, Montana Sen. Jon Tester has a message for Taco Bell: “If you want beef, Montana has got you covered.”

The beef barb comes at a testy time for Taco Bell. The Tex-Mex chain is getting grilled over its beef products, which a class action lawsuit claims are actually contain less than 35 percent beef. The rest, the lawsuit claims, are “taco filler.”

Tester, a Democrat and third generation cattle rancher who is up for re-election in 2012, released a statement Monday encouraging Taco Bell to come to Montana to close the gap.

“If Taco Bell needs to beef up, they can give their customers the highest quality meat around by using Montana beef, and in the process, supporting agriculture jobs in Montana,” Tester said. “And that’s a win-win.”

Taco Bell says the suit is baloney.

In an ad campaign launched last week titled “Thank You for Suing Us”, Taco Bell is telling consumers that its meat filling is 88 percent beef. The rest, says Taco Bell, is a proprietary “secret recipe.”