January 22, 2001

USDA has proposed a requirement that meat and poultry processors conduct environmental testing for generic Listeria and establish food safety performance standards for illness-causing bacteria in all ready-to-eat and partially heat-treated meat and poultry products. It was one of several last-minute decisions handed down on the final day of the Clinton Administration.

"USDA is committed to ensuring the safety of all meat and poultry products throughout their shelf life," outgoing Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said. "The best way to help ensure the safety of these products is to establish science-based, food safety performance standards and then closely monitor compliance with those standards."

The Listeria performance standards proposed would ensure that all categories of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products are covered by a performance standard. The standards set levels of pathogen reduction and limits on pathogen growth that official meat and poultry plants must achieve in order to produce unadulterated products that contain zero detectable pathogens.

It also would require that establishments producing ready-to-eat meat and poultry products conduct environmental testing for generic Listeria as verification that they are controlling the presence of L. monocytogenes. Under the proposal, which was to be published in the Federal Register soon, Salmonella performance standards for certain categories of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products also would be implemented and, to control the growth of C. perfringens and C. botulinum, performance standards for these pathogens would be required for all ready-to-eat, all partially heat-treated, and in thermally processed, commercially sterile meat and poultry products.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, called the proposal "a vast improvement over the current system. Today, processors of ready-to-eat meat products are not required to test either their plants or their products for Listeria. If they test voluntarily, they are under no obligation to share their test results with government regulators, even if their products are linked to an outbreak. Under the proposed rule, every plant that processes hot dogs and deli meats will have to do some testing to ensure that they are controlling Listeria."