Having borrowed my colleague’s crystal ball, I see the following Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) initiatives in 2015:

On Nov. 19, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published a Notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of its cost-benefit analyses on the current non-O157 STEC testing of beef trimmings and the potential expansion of the agency’s testing program to raw ground beef and ground beef components.

Whether the use of antibiotics in animal production is responsible, in whole or in part, for the increased prevalence of antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens in food is definitely a hard and controversial topic.

On Aug. 13, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published a Notice in the Federal Register titled “Implementation of FSIS Traceback and Recall Procedures for Escherichia coli O157:H7 Positive Raw Beef Product.”

On Aug. 13, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued Notice 39-14 titled: “Clarification and Expansion of Sampling Eligibility Criteria for the Routine Beef Manufacturing Trimmings (MT60) and Bench Trim (MT55) Sampling Programs”

FSIS has issued a proposed rule titled “Records to be Kept by Official Establishments and Retail Stores that Grind Raw Beef Products.”

Regrettably, summertime can include a foodborne illness outbreak (and a well-publicized recall) involving meat or poultry.

On April 17, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published its annual report: Incidence and Trends of Infections with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food

Recently, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a white paper titled: “Current and Future Development and Use of Molecular Subtyping by USDA-FSIS.”

On Jan. 10, 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) released its updated Directive 10,240.4, Rev. 3, entitled: “Verification Activities for the Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) Regulation and the Ready-To-Eat (RTE) Sampling Program.”