March 11, 2019

US to implement new guidelines due to recent meat food recalls

The rise in recalls of meat and poultry products which contain foreign materials had prompted the US to plan for the implementation of new guidelines for food companies as early as last week, Reuters reported.

Food producers will be advised by the USDA to begin internal investigations upon getting complaints and to notify the government within 24 hours if contaminated products are sold in the open, Carmen Rottenberg, administrator of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said.

The voluntary guidelines, which are in the works for months, will ensure companies are able to fulfill pre-existing regulatory requirements, Rottenberg added.

Since the start of 2018, companies, including Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods, have made more than 25 recalls involving millions of pounds of chicken nuggets, calzones, sausages and other foods that could potentially contain dangerous materials, USDA records stated.

According to consumer advocates, the increase in meat processing automation has led to more machines parts breaking off and contaminating food. Producers are not willing to recall food products until they could verify that complaints about foreign objects are legitimate.

However, multiple complaints have often preceded recalls, the USDA said in the agenda for a monthly meeting that two consumer advocates provided to Reuters recently.

During the meeting, Roettenberg attributed the the rise in recalls to the USDA increasing its focus on getting both food companies and government inspectors to know the requirements for recalling. The new guidelines will advise food makers on how to investigate and process complaints and apply information from them to subsequent reports of contaminated products, she said.

In the past months, chicken products by Tyson, Perdue Foods and Pilgrim's Pride had been recalled due to the possibility of these products containing rubber or wood. The incidents put the spotlight on food-safety risks.

In a recent incident, Agri Beef recalled about 30,260 pounds of ground beef products produced at its Washington Beef facility in Washington state, US, after blue plastic was allegedly found in a product.

- Reuters