FSIS Looks to Smaller Establishments for Testing
US - The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced that it will soon begin using samples of raw ground beef products submitted from low volume establishments for testing of Salmonella as well as Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7.
11 February 2008
1 minute read
Starting January 1, 2008, the Agency will no longer uses project code MT03 for routine E. coli O157:H7 raw ground beef sampling and testing. Instead, the Agency uses project code MT43 for more risk-based E. coli O157:H7 sampling and testing of raw ground beef.
Currently, because of limited product availability, the Agency does not collect Salmonella sets in establishments producing less than 1000 pounds of raw ground beef per day. The length of time that would be required to complete a representative Salmonella set in such an establishment is too great to produce meaningful results.
The Agency will begin random sampling and testing for Salmonella at each establishment that produces less than 1000 pounds of raw ground beef products in a typical day’s production. Inspection program personnel state the amount of production in their responses to block 28 of the MT43 sample request forms that are submitted with samples for E. coli O157:H7 testing.
TheCattleSite News Desk
