FSIS Beefs Up Meat Processing Rules

WARNER, N.H. - May 22, 2015 - PRLog -- On Monday, May 18th, the Food Safety and Inspection Service published a new rule to be implemented and imposed upon the US beef industry for 2016. This new rule focuses on the labeling of tenderized meat. There are various tenderizing methods including "mechanically tenderized"," blade tenderized", or "needle tenderized" all involving the use of metal instruments on different cuts of meat, which introduces a great risk for contamination.

If the products are cooked before reaching market and sold as ready-to-eat, the processing facilities can guarantee that the meat is cooked to the correct temperature, ensuring the destruction of any pathogens that may have been transferred in the tenderizing process. However, if the meat is sold raw or partially cooked, there is no way for the producers to ensure that the beef is cooked properly and any possible pathogens are destroyed, creating greater risk for consumers.

The new rule requires all mechanically tenderized beef to be labeled as such and include cooking instructions on the packaging. This includes listing the correct temperature that the meat must be heated to in order to eliminate the risk of pathogens.

As with all meat processing, temperature plays an important role in keeping consumers and producers safe. Data loggers (http://www.madgetech.com/data-loggers/applications/meat.html) are used to monitor temperature during the processing, cooking, cooling, storing, shipping and displaying of meat products to provide assurance that the products they are bringing to market are safe. In the event of contamination during tenderizing, data loggers can be used to determine if the meat has reached the required temperature to kill any bacteria that may have been transferred.