Food Safety and Animal Health | New Mandatory Testing Of AMR Beef | Elsa Mur...
Food Safety and Animal Health
Elsa Murano, USDA under secretary for Food Safety, announced a new directive for Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR) systems that will require mandatory testing of AMR beef to verify that no spinal cord tissue is present.
Murano made the announcement in a national teleconference late Tuesday, according to www.meatingplace.com.
At the heart of the new directive will be a program of in-plant sampling of AMR product to verify that no central nervous system tissue is present. Currently, Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors check visually that the cord has been properly removed from bovine vertebral columns before those materials can be processed in AMR systems.
When the new rule takes effect sometime this summer, Murano said processors would be encouraged to hold AMR product until lab results are verified, which she said would take 24 hours. She did not provide details as to frequency or sampling protocol, saying that USDA had not yet determined an appropriate, statistically significant schedule.