Food Safety and Inspection Service United States Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C. 20250-3700

Key Facts: HACCP Final Rule

July 1996

Key Facts: Implementation Schedule

The Food Safety and Inspection Service's Pathogen Reduction and HACCP Systems final rule mandates new measures to target and reduce the presence of pathogenic organisms in meat and poultry products. These measures include FSIS testing to verify pathogen reduction performance standards are being met, plant microbial testing to verify process control for fecal contamination, written sanitation standard operating procedures (SOPs), and mandatory Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system in all meat and poultry plants.

FSIS remains committed to implementing HACCP as rapidly as possible, taking into account the logistical effort required to manage what will be for many establishments, as well as for the Agency, a fundamental change in work processes, roles, and responsibilities. To ease the transition, FSIS has modified the implementation schedule for HACCP.

In the revised implementation schedule, FSIS has taken into account the readiness of establishments of varying sizes to implement HACCP, the time it will take establishments to develop HACCP plans and train their employees, the time it will take to train FSIS employees for their new roles under HACCP and the most expeditious way of bringing the Nation's meat and poultry supply under HACCP-based process control.

FSIS originally proposed to phase in implementation of HACCP during a 12 to 36-month period primarily on a process-by-process basis, except that all "small" plants (defined as plants with annual sales of less than $2.5 million) would be allowed the full 36 months to implement their HACCP plans. The revised implementation schedule will be based on the size of the establishment, with all processes in a single establishment coming under HACCP simultaneously, rather than on a process-by-process basis.

The HACCP regulations set forth in the final rule will be effective as follows:

• In large establishments, those with more than 500 employees, the effective date will be 18 months after publication of the final rule;
• In smaller establishments, those with 500 or fewer but 10 or more employees, the effective date will be 30 months after publication of the final rule;
• In very small establishments, those having fewer than 10 employees or annual sales of less than $2.5 million, the effective date will be 42 months after publication of the final rule.

The Salmonella pathogen reduction performance standards regulations will be effective simultaneously with the effective dates for implementation of HACCP as set forth above.

Both the Sanitation SOPs and the E. coli process control testing regulations will be effective 6 months after publication of the final rule for all plants, regardless of size.

The principle advantages of the revised implementation schedule are as follows:

• Large slaughter establishments account for 75 percent of slaughter production and thus, most of the Nation's meat and poultry supply will come under HACCP-based process control one year earlier than originally proposed.
• Basing the implemention of HACCP on establishment size rather than on type of process will be simpler for both FSIS and the establishments and much less disruptive for plants that run multiple processes.
• The "very small" establishments will have an additional six months during which to implement HACCP, which will provide ample time for completion of the small-plant HACCP demonstration projects FSIS is planning in conjunction with State governments to provide practical experience with HACCP and HACCP-based inspection in many "very small" establishments.

FSIS believes that the revised implementation schedule effectively addresses and balances both the need to expedite implementation of HACCP for food safety reasons and the need to adopt a timetable that takes into account the magnitude of the changes HACCP will bring to industry and the FSIS inspection program.

For Further Information Contact:

• Media Inquiries: (202) 720-9113
• Congressional Inquiries: (202) 720-3897
• Constituent Inquiries: (202) 720-8594
• Consumer Inquiries: Call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-800-535-4555; in the Washington, DC area, call (202) 720-3333; TTY: 1-800-256-7072. 

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