Dive Brief:
- USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has proposed a rule to remove redundancies from existing regulations and streamline trichinae control requirements for pork and pork products.
- The proposed rule would also clarify and consolidate regulations for thermally processed, commercially sterile meat and poultry products (such as canned food products that contain meat or poultry).
- The rule would supplement another 2001 proposed rule from FSIS that set performance standards regarding the safety of ready-to-eat and partially heat-treated meat and poultry products.
Dive Insight:
HACCP regulations have been proven effective for eliminating trichinae and have already significantly decreased the risk of trichinae in pork and pork products. Under HACCP guidelines, pork producers have to identify and control any and all potential food safety hazards. As long as pork producers are compliant with HACCP, they shouldn't have to abide by more prescriptive guidelines for dealing with safety hazards, making the prescriptive guidelines redundant.
Since launching in the late-1990s, HACCP guidelines have given manufacturers more responsibility over inspections and ensuring the safety of their meat and poultry operations. Some have questioned this model's effectiveness.
Last year, the USDA launched an investigation of a Quality Pork Processors facility, a Hormel Foods supplier and one of five facilities participating in the HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP). Nonprofit animal rights group Compassion Over Killing had captured video footage that allegedly showed mistreatment of animals, which may have been overlooked because of less intensive inspections.
FSIS has requested comments on the proposal as soon as the rule is published in the Federal Register, likely sometime this week.