July 27, 2007 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) will discuss potential changes to how it inspects slaughter plants at a public meeting on Aug. 7 in Arlington, Va.

"This will be our first discussion involving modifications to slaughter inspection, incorporating some of the lessons we've learned through the HACCP-based Inspection Models Project and from our own inspection and sampling programs," FSIS spokesman, Steven Cohen, said.

FSIS says the new system would provide inspectors more time and flexibility to perform off-line inspections involving specific risk factors at a facility as well as critical points in slaughter and fabrication where food-safety hazards, and associated risks, may be introduced.

Cohen said the changes are not an extension of the agency's proposed risk-based inspection program, which seeks to deploy inspection forces where they're needed most in processing plants, based on the inherent risks in a processor's product, product volume and the food-safety measures in place to minimize risk.

"We wouldn't want to compare [slaughter inspections] to what we've proposed for processing plants, though we would look to compare performance among facilities based on a specific criteria," Cohen said.

The public meeting will allow stakeholders to weigh in on the subject, while providing FSIS an opportunity to explain why it is looking to implement changes.

The meeting will be held Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. at George Mason University.
Reprinted from meatingplace.com

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