April 29, 2002 - USDA announces new safety directives to control pathogens in ground beef plants

by Bryan Salvage

Sound bite: "If we are going to continue to drive down the incidence of pathogens in raw ground beef, it is crucial that we increase our efforts and resources on those establishments where microbial control may be insufficient." --Dr. Elsa Murano, Agriculture Under Secretary for Food Safety.

New meat safety directives to control pathogens in plants that produce ground beef were announced by Agriculture Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elsa Murano.

Under these new directives, Food Safety Inspection Service inspectors will determine whether plants have specifically addressed salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 in their pathogen reduction/Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point plans to have effective control measures for these pathogens. The HACCP system requires plants to determine those points in their process where contamination can occur and where it can be controlled.

Ground beef plants that do not employ effective decontamination strategies, or that do not require their suppliers to do so as part of their PR/HACCP systems, will be targeted for increased verification testing by FSIS, beyond what is already being conducted. USDA currently tests for salmonella and E.coli O157:H7 in grinding plants to verify that the plants' food safety systems are controlling microbial hazards.

"A key part of pathogen reduction is a strong HACCP system," said Murano in a speech to the National Food Policy Conference. "These directives are an example of how we can better tap HACCP's potential."

Under the PR/HACCP rule, if a plant does not have an adequate plan, or does not have an adequate sanitation program, FSIS can withhold marks of inspection or suspend inspection at a plant, which effectively shuts down the plant.

"Recent data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USDA show that food-borne illness is declining in the United States, and that the prevalence of salmonella in meat and poultry has declined since the implementation of the PR/HACCP rule," Murano said. "If we are going to continue to drive down the incidence of pathogens in raw ground beef, it is crucial that we increase our efforts and resources on those establishments where microbial control may be insufficient."

The directives will be issued within the next several weeks and will be in place while the department works through the rule-making process to include the directives in its food safety regulations.

Part of the plan

The recent announcement is part of a series of actions USDA announced on Dec.18 to further improve meat and poultry safety. USDA is expediting the placement of 75 new Consumer Safety Officers with the primary responsibility of conducting in-depth reviews of plant HACCP and sanitation plans throughout the country. This will bring the total CSO staff to 110, supplementing the more than 7600 USDA food safety inspectors nationwide.

In addition, USDA is conducting a series of public meetings to gain input from interested parties. Murano announced a public symposium on food safety, which will be held May 6-7 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Titled Pathogen Reduction: A Scientific Dialogue, the symposium will bring together leading experts from government and academia to discuss scientific data and issues associated with pathogen reduction and HACCP.

The pre-mentioned initiatives are part of the USDA's overall strategy to improve food safety, which is supported through the Bush Administration's FY 2003 budget request for the department. It provides for $905 million, the second straight year of record level spending, to strengthen FSIS in order to ensure safe and wholesome meat, poultry and egg products for consumers.

This article reprinted with permission from Meat Marketing & Technology.

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