Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 1/16/17


USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection service has issued a notice providing instructions to FSIS Public Health Veterinarians (PHVs), inspection program personnel (IPP) and District Veterinary Medical Specialists (DVMSs) about assessing and informing official livestock establishments whether their written systematic approach for humane handling and slaughter meets the criteria for being a robust plan or not.

Background
In 2004, FSIS recommended that establishments develop and implement a systematic approach for humanely handling and slaughtering livestock by effectively addressing the four aspects of a systematic approach; those are: assessment, design, evaluation and response.

In addition, the agency informed livestock slaughter establishments that if they developed and implemented a robust systematic approach FSIS would consider the robust systematic approach, as well as other factors, when deciding whether to issue a Notice of Suspension (NOS) or Notice of Intended Enforcement (NOIE) action in response to an egregious inhumane handling or slaughter incident.

Procedures
When the establishment management wants to implement an animal-handling program it believes to be a robust systematic approach, it is to request an FSIS review.

Once an establishment has a program in place, the associated plan, corrective actions and records produced will be subject to monthly verification reviews by PHVs.

DVMSs are to evaluate establishments’ robust systematic approach plans during their Humane Handling Verification Visits, which are performed every 12-18 months.

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