Food & Agriculture

The Promise and Problems of HACCP: A Review of USDA’s Approach to Meat and Poultry Safety

This report examines the history of FSIS’s PR/ HACCP rule, including its relationship to pathogen reduction performance standards, and the impact of the Supreme Beef court case in weakening FSIS’s authority to enforce its regulations. The report reviews independent critiques by government investigators of FSIS’s PR/HACCP program, how the program has evolved over the years, and some of FSIS’s most recent changes. Finally, the report makes recommendations to improve the HACCP program to reduce meat and poultry contamination and better protect consumers from foodborne illness.