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POULTRY TIMES, January 7, 2013
USDA rule uping poultry-processing lines speed worries inspectors McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — USDA is poised to finalize major changes to the poultry slaughter-inspection process that critics warn could threaten food safety and harm workers. The proposed rule would allow companies to speed up production lines from 35 birds per minute per inspector to 175 per minute, a fivefold increase. It also would cut hundreds of federal inspector jobs and turn over much of the responsibility for spotting defective or diseased birds to plant employees. The agency says that the proposal, which has been in the works for more than a decade, reduces the risk of foodborne illness by relying on scientific testing to screen carcasses, rather than the naked eye. Under the rule, one inspector
would be stationed at the end of every production line to eyeball chicken carcasses as they whiz by on hooks. Plant employees, rather than federal inspectors, would cull defective birds farther up the line. USDA officials say that frees up the agency’s remaining workforce to perform more important tasks elsewhere in plants, such as random testing for pathogens and monitoring of sanitation. Inspectors shouldn’t be doing quality-control tasks that have little to do with protecting public health, said Elisabeth Hagen, the undersecretary for food safety at the USDA. “There’s a role for visual inspection, but in this day and age it can’t be the only way that we define inspection for food safety,” Hagen said. “We’re not doing the right thing by the consumer if we do that.”
The USDA estimates that the changes will save taxpayers $90 million over three years and $256 million in production costs annually. Industry proponents say the new rule will modernize the poultry inspection system, which hasn’t been updated much since the 1950s. “Look at the data. This is not something that USDA cooked up overnight,” said Tom Super, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council. “This has been in a pilot program for 13 years.” Twenty broiler-chicken plants have volunteered as “trial plants” to test the proposal since 1999. The food-safety and worker-safety records in the plants are on par or better than those plants participating in traditional inspection, Super said. “Chicken companies and their employees on this line have every incentive to not let a product with a quality defect into the marketplace,” he said. Super points out that plants in other countries already run much faster. In Germany and Belgium, for example, line speeds typically reach 225 birds per minute, Super said. In Canada, the maximum speed is 250, he said. Federal poultry inspectors protest that they can’t see bruises, blisters, tumors, pus, broken bones and other signs of tainted birds when carcasses fly by them at a rate of a third of a second. They can’t look inside the birds for bile, partially digested feed
or fecal matter, or examine entrails for diseases such as avian leukosis — contaminants that inspectors say can be disgusting at best and dangerous at worst. Stan Painter, chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, a union that represents about 6,500 federal inspectors, said fewer federal inspectors in plants means fewer police on the beat, and more opportunities for plants to cut corners. “If I know the cops are not going to be on the road in 50 miles, I’m gonna speed,” he added. “The agency is looking at taking 817 inspectors off the poultry lines. I can’t imagine anything worse than that,” said Trent Berhow, a poultry inspector in St. Joseph, Mo., who’s the vice chairman of the union. A risk assessment of the new rule conducted by the USDA found that the rate of fecal-matter contamination at plants in the pilot program is about half that in other plants, and salmonella rates average about 80 percent lower. Equivalent data for campylobacter isn’t available, the agency said. But USDA statistics also show that salmonella rates have been going up in recent years at pilot plants, while decreasing at non-pilot plants. In 2010, the rate was slightly higher at the pilot plants than at the traditional plants the USDA used for comparison. The USDA’s Hagen said the rise wasn’t statistically significant. “I don’t think we’re concerned about
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bright young students interviewed in our College Student Career Program, just a few of the many association programs he developed. Harold was passionate about our industry and about our organization, and we will be forever grateful for his leadership and the example
it,” she said. Consumer advocates say the trend is disturbing. They’re particularly troubled because the proposed rule no longer would require plants to test for E. coli bacteria or any specific pathogens — not even salmonella or campylobacter. Nor would plants have to meet specific time and temperature parameters for chilling chicken before shipping it to stores. Those details would be determined by each plant, rather than by government regulations. “They are leaving it up to the plant to decide what to test for, how frequently to test and then to design its own testing plan,” said Chris Waldrop, the director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America. “It’s shocking, frankly.” Hagen said the USDA’s proposal removed requirements that weren’t necessarily effective. Ultimately, plants still must meet the agency’s safety standards for acceptable levels of pathogen contamination in birds, she said. “Giving them a little bit of flexibility in terms of how they do that is certainly not going to be harmful to consumers,” she added. Hagen said the USDA would continue to conduct its own tests for salmonella and campylobacter at the plants
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he set for service to the poultry industry.” Retired association president Don Dalton also lauded him. “Harold Ford was a great mentor to me and a wonderful personal friend,” Dalton said. “He had an exceptional ability of looking at an issue and getting right to the matter. He was a wonderful man of integrity who will be greatly missed.”
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