United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service - Office of Field Operations (FSIS – OFO)

Overview
This FY11Q2 report provides an overview of Humane Handling and Slaughter Procedures (04C02) in Federally Inspected facilities. This report also includes noncompliance records (NR), time spent on Humane Handling Activity Tracking System (HATS), FSIS slaughter data, and Inhumane Handling Suspensions for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011.

Data was extracted from the FSIS Data Warehouse on April 27, 2011 for the inspection activities, slaughter totals, and HATS time. The suspension data was received from OPEER and to be used for the OPEER CY10Q4 Quarterly Enforcement Report.

Humane Handling Procedures Performed
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, there were 124,546 Humane Handling 04C02 procedures performed (Table 1). During this time, the percent of noncompliance rate was 0.46%, compared to 0.39% for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2010.

Suspensions
There were 67 inhumane handling suspensions at 53 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.63% for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, compared to 85 inhumane handling suspensions at 68 FSIS facilities with an overall NR rate of 0.70% for the 12 month period ending March 31, 2010 (Table 2). From the 53 suspended facilities, 1 establishment had 4 suspensions, 1 establishment had 3 suspensions, and 9 establishments had 2 suspensions (OPEER suspension data).

Time Spent on HATS Activities
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, the total HATS time was 313,223 hours in 794 FSIS livestock slaughter plants, compared to 291,288 hours for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2010 in 798 FSIS livestock slaughter plants (Table 3). The time spent by Public Health Veterinarians (PHV) was 147,751 hours compared to 165,672 hours by non-PHV inspection personnel.

Plant Size Comparison of Livestock Facilities, Head Slaughtered, Procedures Performed and HATS Activities
When breaking down the slaughter, 04C02 procedures, and HATS time data by Plant Size for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, the following was identified: livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 2,350,802 in 544 very small plants to 126,157,360 in 63 large plants; the percent noncompliance rate ranged from 0.44% in large plants and very small plants to 0.51% in small plants; and the HATS time per 04C02 procedure performed ranged from 4.74 hours per 04C02 procedure performed in large plants to 1.38 hours per 04C02 procedure performed in very small plants (Table 4).

District Comparison of Livestock Facilities, Head Slaughtered, Procedures Performed and HATS Activities
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, the noncompliance percent rate by district ranged from 0.23% in Denver, to 0.90% in Beltsville. For the same time period, the noncompliance rate per 100,000 livestock heads slaughtered ranged from 0.09 in Des Moines to 9.02 in Albany (Table 5).

Overall, for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, livestock head slaughtered and total 04C02 procedures performed dropped when compared to the 12-month period ending March 31, 2010. However, the overall HATS time increased from 291,288 hours to 313,223 hours, the number of 04C02 procedures performed noncompliant increased from 504 to 572, and the percent of 04C02 noncompliant increased form 0.39% to 0.46% when compared to the same timeframe.