Something for Everyone in New Meat Inspection Rules--for now

Weeks, possibly months, will pass before anyone outside the federal government will completely understand the 800 pages of new meat and poultry inspection rules announced this weekend by President Clinton.

The historic changes in the Agriculture Department’s regulations on slaughter and processing plants are so extensive that it isn’t possible to publish them in the federal register, or make copies available to the public, until next Thursday.

From what is known of the document, there is something to please and upset all the interested parties, including consumer groups, food companies, inspectors’ unions and meat industry trade associations. That fine balance could become undone and criticism could rise as understanding of the system--known throughout the food industry as the “Mega Reg”--grows.

It is even possible that the media hype surrounding the symbolic Fourth of July weekend announcement at the White House will raise public expectations to unreasonable levels.

Under the new regulation, certain amounts of contamination will be considered acceptable. For instance, raw ground poultry with potentially dangerous salmonella bacteria could be sold as long as the amount of contaminated meat does not exceed 49% of the plant’s total output in a given period. Conceivably, then, every other turkey or chicken burger could carry salmonella.

But only 2.7% of raw ground red meats would be allowed to have salmonella contamination, a disparity that has angered beef and pork producers.

Even at 49%, the new inspection is an improvement over the current process, where any level of bacterial contamination is permissible in raw meat or poultry.

“We are going from a system without any standards to reduce harmful bacteria at all to one that will make companies responsible for reducing harmful bacteria levels,” said Michael Taylor, administrator of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which operates the nation’s $500-million meat and poultry inspections. “We are going from no responsibility for bacteria, to responsibility for reducing bacteria. From no testing, to testing.”

Taylor said the USDA-approved allowable levels for bacteria in meat and poultry will be reduced over time as industrywide sanitation improves. The wide variations in allowable salmonella levels, however, constitute an economic advantage for poultry processors, beef and pork processors say.

“Salmonella make no distinction of whether it comes from poultry or red meat . . . . It still takes the same number of organisms to make somebody sick,” said Rosemary Mucklow, executive director of the National Meat Assn. in Oakland. “There is more leniency in these salmonella levels for poultry . . . and it’s a matter of political science mixed with real science.”

Mucklow also said that consumers might be misled into thinking the new inspections are a farm-to-fork system. In actuality, the new regulations address neither farm-level nor retail-level food safety efforts.

The testing for salmonella, to be done by the USDA, is just one of the science-based inspection tools that will become mandatory in the meat industry over the next 18 months.

Currently, USDA inspectors are limited to determining wholesomeness and safety by their own sight, smell and touch--methods incapable of detecting microscopic bacterial threats. Central to the inspection reform is a requirement that plants operate under a scientific plan called “Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP).”

Meat and poultry companies, using federal guidelines set forth in the new regulation, will identify those points in their processing systems where contamination problems are most likely to occur. Once identified, firms will ensure that they are in compliance by operating within the predetermined margin for safety and by keeping detailed records of their progress.

HACCP also requires processors to conduct frequent laboratory analyses of their own products for generic E. coli, an indicator of fecal contamination. USDA inspectors will then monitor the company’s compliance with standards for those critical areas--essentially, more a government audit of records than inspectors watching carcasses move down the production line.

The move away from the oft-ridiculed sight, touch and smell approach to meat inspection is also a concern for some. A recent report by the General Accounting Office, a Congressional watchdog agency, found that HACCP systems, by design, reduce the federal government’s presence in meat and poultry plants. In essence, the change is a fundamental shift in the government’s philosophy and some consumer groups charge it is a dangerous deregulation.

“A clean plant, like a clean kitchen, is likely to produce safe foods,” says Rod Leonard, executive director of the Community Nutrition Institute in Washington. “Federal inspectors have the authority and the responsibility to require plant management to maintain sanitary and hygienic conditions and to operate clean plants for processing food. Scientific studies have demonstrated that unsanitary conditions can be identified visually, [by touch] and by smell. . . .

“Unfortunately, a decision has already been made to replace inspectors, initially by reassigning them from monitoring sanitation in plants to monitoring plant records. . . . The fact is, the only truly scientifically based procedure to ensure meat and poultry are processed in clean plants that operate with good sanitary practices based on hygienic principles is to shut down dirty plants and stop dirty practices.”

Taylor, of the USDA, said the current organoleptic standards will remain an important part of the new inspection effort. But the USDA is exploring ways for meat companies to do the sorting of diseased carcasses from wholesome ones. The federal government’s limited resources, he says, are better spent fighting the invisible threats.