DES MOINES – Iowa has 20 million or so hogs, and slaughtering them might speed up under new rules proposed today by the federal government.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced new rules that would “remove unnecessary regulatory obstacles to innovation by revoking maximum line speeds” in slaughterhouses and “allow establishments flexibility to reconfigure evisceration lines.”
The USDA says “such a system would allow FSIS inspectors to conduct a more efficient inspection. As a result, FSIS could assign fewer inspectors to online inspection, freeing up Agency resources to conduct more offline inspection activities that FSIS has determined are more effective in ensuring food safety, such as verifying compliance with sanitation, HACCP, and humane handling requirements.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) says the new rules are part of its continued effort to modernize inspection systems through science-based approaches to food safety. USDA is proposing to amend the federal meat inspection regulations to establish a new voluntary inspection system for market hog slaughter establishments called the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS), while also requiring additional pathogen sampling for all swine slaughter establishments.
The proposed rule also allows innovation and flexibility to establishments that are slaughtering market hogs. Market hogs are uniform, healthy, young animals that can be slaughtered and processed in this modernized system more efficiently and effectively with enhanced process control.
For market hog establishments that opt into NSIS, the proposed rule would increase the number of offline USDA inspection tasks, while continuing 100% FSIS carcass-by-carcass inspection. These offline inspection tasks place inspectors in areas of the production process where they can perform critical tasks that have direct impact on food safety.
in the hog capitol of the world – Iowa.
Hogs lay dead at a confinement
near Webster City, Iowa.
“FSIS is excited to continue modernizing inspection practices, while allowing opportunities for industry to innovate and streamline food production,” said Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety Carmen Rottenberg. “There is no single technology or process to address the problem of foodborne illness, but when we focus our inspections on food safety-related tasks, we better protect American families.”
In this proposal, USDA would also amend the regulations that apply to all establishments that slaughter swine. The new requirements would ensure that establishments implement measures to control enteric pathogens that can cause foodborne illness. Specifically, all swine slaughter establishments would be required to implement appropriate measures to prevent contamination throughout the entire production process in their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans, Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (Sanitation SOPs), or other prerequisite programs. The new requirements would ensure that both USDA and the establishment have the documentation they need to verify the effectiveness of these measures on an ongoing basis.
There will be a 60-day period for comment once the rule is published in the Federal Register.
Click here to view the proposed rule and for information on how to comment on the rule.
Without an inspector there would it be possible to cut a tumor off a hog that has cancer and let it go down the line like nothing was wrong – okay if the meat goes back to China where the company originates from but not okay to unwary American families ?
Why they will process them so fast when you open the package you will get a loud oink.
U could say these are the new chinese rules as they own most of America’s meat complex. I now know this new process is better for Americans because our gov.tells me so – so there!