Federal Working Group Issues Food Safety Recommendations
 
The President's Food Safety Working Group released a number of recommendations earlier this week aimed at improving the safety of the U.S. food supply. Among the recommendations, the group proposes stepped-up government enforcement at beef facilities. Specifically, the group recommends that by the end of July, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS): 1) issue improved instructions to its workforce on how to verify that establishments that handle beef are acting to reduce the presence of E. coli., and 2) increase its sampling to find this pathogen, focusing largely on the components that go into making ground beef. The details of how these proposals would be implemented are not yet clear.
 
Food safety is a top priority of NCBA members. While the U.S. has the safest food supply in the world, our industry is constantly looking for ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the systems we have in place. Since 1993 cattle producers have invested more than $27 million in beef safety research, and the beef industry as a whole spends approximately $350 million every year on beef safety.We hope the administration will work closely with industry to ensure any changes are based on sound-science and will accomplish our common goal of improving food safety.
 
The Working Group, created in March, is chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and includes participants from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), FSIS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, the Environmental Protection Agency, and several offices of the White House.