December 26, 2013

USDA reports results of Chinese poultry slaughter plants audit

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has posted in its website the final report entitled the "Food Safety System Governing the Production of Slaughtered Poultry Intended for Export to the United States of America."

The report describes the outcome of an on-site initial equivalence audit of four poultry slaughter establishments conducted in the People's Republic of China by FSIS on March 4-19, 2013.

The objectives of the audit were to determine the performance of China's food safety system in regards to each of the six equivalence components, including government oversight; statutory authority and food safety regulations; sanitation; hazard analysis and critical control point systems; chemical residue programmes; and microbiological testing programmes.

FSIS determined that the Chinese slaughter inspection system is not comparable to the US system and therefore that poultry slaughtered in the People's Republic of China are not eligible to be imported to the US. The report also indicates that China's inspection system lacks a standardised method to assign inspection personnel to slaughter facilities and that, by splitting inspection of the viscera, body surface, and body cavity of birds among three different inspectors, the system is not consistent with the US requirements. China has indicated it intends to make the necessary changes, at which point FSIS may re-audit the system for equivalency.

This determination does not affect the FSIS decision from earlier this summer that chicken processed in China (but slaughtered in the US or Canada) has received inspection equivalent to US inspection.