Source: Richard Lobb, MEATINGPLACE, 12/12/11

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is moving forward with a long-delayed initiative to shift more responsibility for inspecting and sorting chicken carcasses from federal inspectors to plant employees, a USDA spokesman confirmed with Meatingplace Friday.

“We expect that the proposed rule on modernizing the poultry slaughter inspection system will make great strides in protecting public health and preventing foodborne illness,” said Dirk Fillpot, media supervisor in the USDA office of Congressional and public affairs in a statement to Meatingplace. “We look forward to a full discussion of the food safety improvements that are expected from this proposed rule when OMB completes its review.”

According to a summary on the OMB website, USDA’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) is proposing a rule that would “provide the framework for action to provide public health-based inspection in all establishments” that slaughter young chickens, including broilers, fryers, roasters, and Cornish game hens.
The program is apparently an expansion of a pilot program known as HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP). In plants operating under HIMP, plant employees remove carcasses with defects from the inspection line for disposal or reworking. Federal inspectors do not handle the carcasses as they do in traditional inspection, although a federal inspector is stationed at the end of the line, just before the chiller, to provide a final visual inspection and oversight of the process.

“Under the proposed new system, young chicken slaughter establishments would be required to sort chicken carcasses and to conduct other activities to ensure that carcasses are not adulterated before they enter the chilling tank,” the summary said. It added that the rule will also revoke provisions that allowed plants to operate under other systems that were more efficient alternatives to traditional inspection, which would essentially force those plants into the HIMP program, observers said.

The pilot has been in effect since 1998, and proposals to expand the program have been in the works for several years. Under an agreement with the union representing federal meat and poultry inspectors, the pilot program was limited to 20 young chicken plants, five market hog plants, and five young turkey plants, according to information on the FSIS website. The new rule applies only to chicken plants, however.
Some advocacy groups are staunchly opposed to expansion of the program.

“We urge President Obama to drop this proposed rule that would unnecessarily put consumer safety at risk,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, in a statement.

USDA maintains that research shows that carcasses produced under HIMP have better scores for food safety and defects than birds going through traditional inspection.

“Food & Water Watch vehemently opposes this proposed rule because we believe it will compromise consumer safety,” Hauter said. She said it would “privatize” federal food inspection.

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