Complain about a product or service

Feds Step Up Inspections at Selected Food Plants

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 1, 2007

• Feds Step Up Inspections at Selected Food Plants --- • More Food Safety News ...

Not all food processing plants are the same, so government safety inspectors say they'll look more closely at some than others. As the peanut butter-salmonella story was unfolding, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced a timetable for its "risk-based" inspection system.

Under the plan, government food inspectors would increase scrutiny of food processing plants where past problems had occurred, while paying less attention to those with few or no past problems.

The new system will begin in April with 30 locations representing about 254 establishments and potentially expanding to approximately 150 locations by the end of 2007.

"By taking into account the relative risk of what each processing plant produces and how each plant is controlling risk in its operations, FSIS will more effectively allocate inspection resources to those processing plants needing it the most, while continuing daily inspection at all processing facilities," the agency said in a statement.

The level of inspection at a processing plant will be based on a number of objective factors, such as the number of times a particular location had been cited for non-compliance. FSIS says the new system will be more effective in terms of preventing human illness and will yield greater confidence that meat, poultry and egg products are safe.

"Our inspectors visit every one of these plants every day and that won't change," said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Richard Raymond.

"What will change is we will no longer be treating every plant like every other plant in terms of its adverse public health potential and we will start using the information and the inspection expertise we already have in ways that better protect consumers," he said.

Meanwhile, critics of the Food and Drug Administration charge that agency has been forced into adopting a "less is more" approach to food inspections, but no one is arguing that it's on purpose. The Associated Press reported this week that FDA has slashed food inspections by 75 percent over a three year period because of a reduction in resources.

While none of the critics have expressly linked the recent food poisoning outbreaks with government inspection policy, many experts are concerned about the direction.

Last October, Sanford Miller, senior fellow at the University of Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy, cited a number of troublesome signs, and said consumers should prepare for a series of bacteria problems in the food supply.

"The basic problem is the lack of resources and authority," Miller said in response to last fall's E. coli outbreak linked to fresh spinach. "There is also the problem associated with the fragmentation of responsibility and authority for food safety. At least 12 agencies have responsibilities in this area as do the state and local authorities. The amazing thing is not that we have events such as the spinach problem but rather that we don't have many more."

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.