Ramping up representation of independent processors in Washington

Tuesday October 24th, 2017 was a good day for the American Association of Meat Processors. It was a day that had been in the planning stages for a long time from the AAMP side of things, as well as being highly anticipated. For the first time in quite a while, since before I came to work for the association, AAMP representatives traveled to Washington as an organization, not part of other industry meetings, and sat down with the leadership of FSIS for face-to-face talks on issues that are important to our members. Issues like humane handling enforcement, Revised Appendix A & B, labeling, interventions and testing and the relationships between inspection personnel and small plants. AAMP representatives also spent time in three Congressional offices on Capitol Hill discussing the same issues.

The first meeting of the day was with Acting FSIS Administrator Paul Kiecker and his leadership team. We discussed the issues and how we could partner with FSIS on some of those issues to ensure the long-term business success of small processors. The main priority for our meeting was to let FSIS know that we were willing to partner with them to both educate processors on regulatory requirements and to help facilitate regulatory change that will benefit small processors. We also wanted them to know that AAMP was willing to use our resources to protect our members from the actions of any regulatory agency that we feel targets small processors, either individually or collectively.