Source:  Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 12/9/09

USA Today on Wednesday published a story that questioned the efficacy of USDA standards for the meat and poultry purchased for school lunch programs, saying the agency's testing regimes and purchase criteria fall short of those implemented by fast food restaurants and some retailers.

The newspaper said it examined 150,000 tests on beef purchased by USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service for the school lunch program and found the vast majority of the more than 100 million pounds of beef it buys each year would satisfy the standards of most commercial buyers. However, it also found cases in which the agency bought meat that retailers and fast food chains would have rejected.

The story pointed to differences in meat purchasing standards between AMS and restaurant chains such as Jack in the Box, McDonald's and Burger King in terms of ground beef production testing frequency and how they handle test results that show high levels of an indicator bacteria known as "generic E. coli" (including those strains other than O157:H7 measured in colony-forming units).

USA Today said while Jack in the Box, which pioneered many of the safety standards now used across the fast-food industry, won't accept beef with generic E. coli levels of more than 100 CFUs per gram, AMS will buy beef for school lunch program with generic E. coli counts of up to 1,000 CFUs per gram.

Spokesman Billy Cox told Meatingplace in an email that critical limits are only part of its microbiological testing program and noted its "upper specification limit" for generic E. coli at 100 CFUs per gram, "well below the critical control limits that have been referenced by USA Today."

"The cornerstone of our program is the statistical process control system that provides a 97.4 percent assurance that vendors supply product under our upper specification limits, not our higher critical limits which result in failure, and non acceptance by AMS, of an entire day's production," he said.

"We remain confident, based upon past benchmarking activities, that our testing protocols and standards are similar to or exceed those of most major large volume buyers of ground beef," Cox said.

Nonetheless, USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver confirmed to Meatingplace that USDA now plans to review the program.

"Secretary Vilsack has ordered an independent review of the testing procedures and requirements of the National School Lunch Program and charged the Department with ensuring that all products supplied to America's school children are safe and healthy and that our purchasing processes remain equivalent with best industry practices," said Weaver.

The full USA Today article can be accessed here. 

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