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Food Safety and Inspection
Service United States Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C. 20250-3700 |
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Food Safety and Inspection
Service United States Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C. 20250-3700 |
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a public health regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, protects consumers by ensuring that meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and accurately labeled.
FSIS protects the public health by regulating meat, poultry, and egg products, which account for a third of consumer spending for food, with an annual retail value of $120 billion. This includes all raw beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and turkey, as well as processed meat and poultry products, including hams, sausage, soups, stews, pizzas, and frozen dinners (generally, products that contain 2% or more cooked meat and poultry or 3% or more raw meat and poultry). Examples of processed egg products regulated by FSIS are dried egg yolks, scrambled egg mix, dried egg powder, and liquid eggs.
Under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act, FSIS inspects all meat, poultry, and egg products sold in interstate commerce and reinspects imported products, to ensure that they meet U.S. food safety standards. More than 7,600 inspection personnel verify that regulations regarding food safety and other consumer protection concerns such as labeling, are met in nearly 6,500 meat, poultry, and egg processing plants. In slaughter plants, inspection involves examining, before and after slaughter, birds and animals intended for use as food. In egg processing plants, inspection involves examining, before and after breaking, eggs intended for further processing and use as food.
FSIS has many responsibilities in addition to these inspection activities. The Agency sets requirements for meat and poultry labels and for certain slaughter and processing activities, such as plant sanitation and thermal processing, that the industry must meet. FSIS tests for microbiological, chemical, and other types of contamination and conducts epidemiological investigations in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based on reports of foodborne health hazards and disease outbreaks. In addition, the Agency conducts enforcement activities to address situations where unsafe, unwholesome, or inaccurately labeled products have been produced or marketed.
To ensure the safety of imported products, FSIS maintains a comprehensive system of import inspection and controls. Annually, FSIS reviews inspection systems in all foreign countries eligible to export meat and poultry to the United States to ensure that they are equivalent to those under U.S. laws. Reinspection of all imported meat and poultry products entering the United States verifies that the country’s inspection system is working.
FSIS is also responsible for assessing whether State inspection programs that regulate meat and poultry products are equal to the Federal program. Products produced under the State programs may be sold only within the State in which they were produced. The 1967 Wholesome Meat Act and the 1968 Wholesome Poultry Act established the "at least equal" standard. FSIS assumes responsibility for inspection if a State chooses to end its inspection program or cannot maintain the equivalent standard.
Furthermore, FSIS takes advantage of new science and technology to develop new methods of inspection to better protect the public health. Through consumer education programs and the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline (1-800-535-4555), the Agency keeps the public informed on how to properly handle, prepare, and store meat, poultry, and egg products to prevent foodborne illness.
Foodborne illness is recognized as a significant public health problem in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths are caused by foodborne pathogens annually.
FSIS is implementing a broad and long-term science-based strategy to improve the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products in order to better protect public health. The Agency is taking a farm-to-table approach by improving the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products at each step in the food production, processing, distribution, and marketing chain. These steps are designed to focus attention on the risk of microbial contamination--the nation's most significant food safety problem. The Agency's goal is to reduce contamination as much as possible by building the principle of prevention into the production and inspection processes and fostering the development and use of new technology. FSIS also envisions the need for a higher level of scientific and technical capability in its workforce and is developing these skills by educating and retraining current employees and recruiting and hiring employees in occupational series that focus on needed skills.
In 2000, FSIS completed implementation of its landmark rule on Pathogen Reduction and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems, which published in the Federal Register on July 25, 1996. Implementation was phased in based on plant size. Under the regulations, each meat and poultry plant must develop and implement a written plan for meeting its sanitation responsibilities and develop and implement a HACCP plan that systematically addresses all significant hazards associated with its products. In addition, all slaughter plants must regularly test for generic E. coli to verify their procedures for preventing and reducing fecal contamination--the main source of bacteria that cause human foodborne illness. Raw products from slaughter plants and plants that grind meat and poultry are subject to Salmonella testing by FSIS. These efforts are directed at reducing microbial contamination over time.
With the Pathogen Reduction and HACCP final rule, FSIS has shifted its regulatory approach for meat and poultry. The expanded approach includes not only the product but also the process. A system under which potential food safety problems are identified and prevented is replacing a system that focused largely on detecting problems at the end of the production line.
As FSIS proceeds with HACCP implementation, it has also developed new inspection models for use in plants that slaughter young, generally healthy, and uniform animals. In this pilot project, FSIS inspectors focus on public health concerns rather than on sorting carcasses, which is left to the plant to do. The project is an effort to determine whether integrating HACCP, a science-based, preventive food safety system into all aspects of slaughter operations, will result in the production of product that is at least as good as that produced under the traditional inspection system. To date, the data show that it is resulting in product with fewer food safety and non-food safety defects.
FSIS is working with Federal, State, and local agencies to ensure food safety at all stages of the farm-to-table chain. This includes developing Federal standards for the safe handling of food during transportation, distribution, and storage. FSIS also is working with producers and others to develop and implement voluntary food safety measures that can be taken on the farm and before animals enter the slaughter facility to reduce the risk of harmful contamination of meat and poultry products.
FSIS is relying more heavily on risk assessments as a means of guiding food safety policy decisions. The Agency has conducted risk assessments for Salmonella enteritidis in eggs and egg products, E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef, and, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a risk ranking for Listeria monocytogenes in a variety of foods. Risk assessment is a structured process for determining the risks associated with any type of hazard—biological, chemical, or physical.
Furthermore, FSIS is working to improve the surveillance of foodborne illness. The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), operated by CDC, USDA, FDA, and State health departments, is providing more precise information on the incidence of foodborne disease in the United States and is helping FSIS better respond to the most significant public health problems.
In addition to working to improve the safety of food, FSIS has also been active with consumer education programs for more than 20 years. Today, as new pathogens and food hazards emerge, these programs are a vital link in educating consumers about emerging risks and safe food handling. Based on research concerning food risks, consumer behaviors, and marketing strategies, FSIS develops and targets educational programs to the general public as well as to people facing increased risks from foodborne illness—the elderly, pregnant women and young children, and people who are immune compromised. In addition, FSIS teams with other Federal agencies and public/private partnerships to support safe food handling education throughout all links of the farm-to-table food safety chain.
For Further Information Contact:
FSIS Congressional and Public Affairs Staff
Phone: (202) 720-3897
Fax: (202) 720-5704