Food Safety and Inspection Service December 2020 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is announcing the availability of an updated version of the guideline for industry on how to respond to customer complaints of meat and poultry products contaminated with foreign materials. FSIS originally published the guideline in March 2019. Additionally, FSIS is responding to comments received on the March 2019 guideline.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is announcing its intention to request renewal of the approved information collection regarding labeling requirements for raw meat and poultry products that do not meet the standard of identity regulations and to which solutions have been added. There are no changes to the existing information collection. The approval for this information collection will expire on June 30, 2021.

Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is correcting a final rule that published on October 29, 2020. The final rule requires official plants that process egg products (herein also referred to as ``egg products plants'' or ``plants'') to develop and implement Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Systems and Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (Sanitation SOPs) and to meet other sanitation requirements consistent with FSIS's meat and poultry regulations.

FSIS is proposing to revise the regulations prescribing the statistical methods used in measuring the performance of chemistry laboratories in its voluntary Accredited Laboratory Program (ALP) and to expand the scope of accreditations offered by the program. Currently, participants in the ALP are accredited for the analysis of food chemistry (moisture, protein, fat, and salt), specific chemical residues, and classes of chemical residues. FSIS is proposing to change the statistical method it uses to evaluate laboratory proficiency testing (PT) sample results to the z score approach for those accreditations that are currently evaluated by Cumulative Summation (CUSUM). FSIS also is proposing to accredit non-Federal laboratories for microbiological indicator organisms and pathogen testing, in response to industry interest. Additionally, the Agency is proposing to make various minor edits and changes to the regulation for the sake of clarity and to incorporate all sample types under the jurisdiction of FSIS (e.g., to include egg products), as appropriate for the associated analyte, and to improve program flexibility. Improving program flexibility includes updating definitions to remove specific references that are currently limiting the program.