Federal Regulation of Meat and Poultry Products--Increased Consumer Protection and Efficiencies Needed

Gao ID: RCED-83-68 May 4, 1983

GAO reviewed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service's (FSIS) regulation of processed meat and poultry products. The review was made to determine whether: (1) standards have been developed to help ensure consumers of the uniformity and consistency of products; (2) products are properly labeled; and (3) sampling procedures are efficient and effective.

Products made with mechanically separated meat (MSM) and poultry (MSP) contain some pulverized bone, bone marrow, and certain potentially harmful minerals. Consequently, to protect the public, FSIS established specific standards and labeling requirements on MSM. Although a USDA study has shown that similar health and safety problems exist for MSP, FSIS has not established specific requirements for these products. Because MSM is different from hand-separated meat in that it contains higher amounts of calcium and cholesterol, FSIS established product standards and labeling requirements to prevent MSM products with misleading labels from being sold to consumers. However, similar action has not been taken to protect consumers from products produced with MSP. In a related issue, FSIS has also established standards on the maximum fat and added water that cooked meat sausage products can contain to ensure the products' nutritional quality, but similar standards on cooked poultry sausage products have not been established. To ensure product compliance, FSIS took three types of samples on processed meat products; however, GAO believes that changes could be made in each type of sample to improve efficiency and consumer protection.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Brian P. Crowley Team: General Accounting Office: Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division Phone: (202) 512-9450


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