Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Cargill-PEW Institute call for meat inspection reform



Cargill and the Pew Institute are calling for reforms to U.S. meat inspection to shift it from inspectors’ opinions to greater reliance on data.

The changes it urges are similar to those the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been making as it relies more on lab test results and less on visual appearance of meat.

The report also calls for a merger into a new agency that would take over from the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.


Canada recently shifted meat inspection from the agriculture department to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has long been responsible for enforcement of regulations adopted by other agencies, such as Consumer Affairs (fair weights, measurements and labeling) and Health.