The US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has announced a regulatory sampling programme to ensure beef products derived from Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR) systems are accurately labelled.
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AMR is a technology that removes muscle tissue from beef carcasses without breaking bones. When produced properly, products derived using AMR can be labelled as “meat”.
Previously, FSIS inspectors took regulatory samples of AMR product if they believed that an establishment was not completely removing spinal cord tissue. Products labelled as “meat” found to contain spinal cord tissue are considered misbranded under FSIS policy.
The FSIS has now begun a routine regulatory sampling of beef products from AMR systems as outlined in a December directive. The new sampling programme requires inspectors to test beef product from AMR systems on a routine basis to verify that spinal cord tissue is not present. If spinal cord tissue is detected, the FSIS said action will be taken to relabel held product or recall distributed product from commerce.
Consumption by humans of beef spinal cord tissue is thought to lead to the degenerative brain disease, variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease.
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By GlobalDataThe FSIS said inspection personnel would also conduct follow-up sampling to verify that the establishment has taken appropriate corrective action. AMR production will not be allowed to resume until FSIS determines that those corrective actions have been successful.
A 2002 survey of 34 establishments producing beef products from AMR systems to determine the frequency that products contained central nervous system tissue, including spinal cord tissue, showed that approximately 35% of the final product samples tested positive for central nervous system (spinal cord) and central nervous system-associated tissues.
