Articles Tagged with ''FSIS''

U.S. Senators agreed to shift $55 million in funds within the Department of Agriculture on Wednesday to avoid temporary layoffs of all U.S. meat inspectors due to federal budget cuts.

The Pryor/Blunt amendment would transfer $55 million in existing agriculture funds to FSIS in order to ensure food inspectors are not furloughed.

The amended regulation, effective May 6, 2013, will allow RTE meat and poultry manufacturers to use Kemin Industries’ liquid antimicrobial, BactoCEASE, as an alternative to traditional lactates.

At presstime in late February, sequestration had become the No. 1 topic for the meat and poultry industry.

Vilsack said in a February 12 letter that, although furloughs are "the least desirable option," there was no other way to satisfy the impending cuts.

For many years the USDA: Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has had a website on the Internet. At one point in time the website had gotten very large and was difficult to navigate.

Periodically, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will announce its expectation that establishments reassess their HACCP plans in addition to the annual reassessment expected by the regulations.

The notice announces the 2013 rates that FSIS will charge meat and poultry establishments, egg products plants, and importers and exporters for providing voluntary, overtime, and holiday inspection and identification, certification, and laboratory services.

This notice asks inspectors to verify and document the sample source in the Public Health Information System (PHIS) when collecting raw beef samples under FSIS’s verification testing programs for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC).