Meat Firms May Use Additives Against Listeria

January 21, 2000

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service will allow meat companies to increase the use of several food ingredients used to inhibit pathogen growth or as flavor enhancers. It also means companies will have to reassess their hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) systems for those products.

Under a new FSIS rule, the use of sodium diacetate and sodium acetate as flavoring agents in meat and poultry products is approved at a level up to 0.25% by weight of total formulation. Use of sodium diacetate to inhibit the growth of listeria is approved at 0.25%.

FSIS also will permit the use of sodium lactate and potassium lactate as flavoring agents and as a means of inhibiting certain pathogens in fully cooked meat and poultry products at a level up to 4.8% of total formulation.

However, an increase in the amount of sodium acetate as an antimicrobial agent in meat and poultry was not approved, because sufficient data were not submitted to support the requested increase, FSIS said. FSIS cannot permit the use of potassium acetate or potassium diacetate as a means of inhibiting the growth of certain pathogens or as a flavoring agent now, since the Food and Drug Administration has not yet established a level for that use, and data were not submitted too support the requested increase, the agency added.

Since use of the approved food ingredients changes a product's formulation, FSIS expects companies using the substances to reassess their HACCP plans for those products. Also, companies using the substances to inhibit the growth of pathogens should consider modifying their HACCP plans to designate their use as a critical control point or should consider incorporating their use into an existing critical control point, FSIS said.