Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 12/19/16


The USDA’s 2017-2021 Strategic Plan for its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is the latest indication of its move toward a science-oriented public health organization, one whose stated goal is to enhance communications between the agency and industry.

In its latest five-year strategic plan, FSIS outlines broad goals to increase inspections, toughen food safety regulations and expand processes for evaluating imported meat, poultry and egg products.

Modernized inspection systems
On modernizing its inspection systems and policies, the agency plans to use data from its Public Health Information System (PHIS) as well as new data generated from “enhanced scientific techniques” to facilitate inspection task scheduling across individual establishments.

It also plans to “increase awareness of humane handling best practices through broader and targeted outreach to the livestock industry, specifically on handling and stunning requirements.”

A major reason for FSIS humane handling enforcement actions is the ineffective restraint and/or stunning of livestock, according to the agency.

“Establishments often employ a 'one size fits all’ approach to stunning and restraint, even though the establishment may be slaughtering several amenable species of varying sizes. As a result, stunning and restraint are areas that need increased attention, including education, outreach, and continued enforcement where warranted, to ensure industry complies with these important requirements in all livestock slaughter situations,” according to the report.

Improved food safety
On its goal of improving food safety, the agency “is expanding the breadth, depth, and frequency of its sampling to better address gaps in testing for pathogens and chemical residues in FSIS-regulated products,” according to its report. “Approaches include unifying testing so that FSIS only collects one sample for each product and tests it for multiple microbiological hazards or chemical residues, and leveraging new technology to increase precision, gain efficiencies, and better identify and define hazards and problems.”

Although FSIS sampling programs include collecting samples of a variety of product types and then testing those samples for multiple microbiological hazards and chemical residues, there are some establishments, hazards and products that the agency does not currently sample or test. It maintains a few exclusions or exceptions in a variety of sampling programs for different regulatory and policy reasons. “FSIS will continue to use a risk-based approach in closing these exceptions, to the extent practicable,” according to the report.

In addition to increasing the percentage of different products FSIS tests, the agency also will increase the percentage of establishments at which it collects samples “to close identified sampling gaps, reduce exceptions to what it samples and tests, and gather knowledge on the relative risk of contamination of regulated products.”

That approach should allow for improved allocation of resources while closing sampling gaps, the agency wrote.

More resources for imports
FSIS also plans to increase product sampling and technical assistance with other countries over its regulatory requirements to ensure that they meet public health standards for imported products.

Anticipating a jump in the number of foreign inspection programs looking for an equivalence determination, the agency will be boosting resources dedicated to imports.

“In the next few years, FSIS intends to reach out to international regulatory counterparts who are currently implementing or working to modernize existing food safety inspection programs to inform them of our best practices and technological advances and work with them to improve food safety standards and vital health protections worldwide,” according to the report.

“The … 2017–2021 Strategic Plan builds on prior successes and reflects emerging issues that FSIS faces in ensuring that the food products we regulate are safe to eat,” Al Almanza, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety, wrote in the report. “By using cutting-edge yet practical science, enhanced data capabilities, and our employees’ skills and expertise, we will continue to modernize and be more effective in meeting our public health mission.”

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