Regulatory Comments
Submitted by the National Restaurant Association
To: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety & Inspection Service
Date: June 14, 2000
Topic: In-Distribution Pilot Test Project

---

June 14, 2000

FSIS Docket Clerk
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service
Room 102, Cotton Annex
300 12^th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20250-3700

Re: Docket No. 98-066N

Dear Sir or Madam:

The National Restaurant Association, representing more than 37,000 members and 175,000 restaurant outlets, would like to comment on the Report on the In-Distribution Pilot Test Project. The Association views positively recent steps that the United States Department of Agriculture has taken to help ensure that both consumers and retailers can continue to depend on a safe meat and poultry supply. Notably, we commend you for support of the FDA Model Food Code and the increased use of HACCP at meat processing plants and slaughterhouses

However, we believe that the proposed diversion of FSIS plant inspectors to the retail area for increased “reviews” or inspection tasks will cause confusion and clearly duplicate the responsibility of the FDA and state and local health authorities. As you know, current state and local retail inspection programs are based upon the FDA’s model food codes, which provide comprehensive regulation of restaurants for the full range of foods they provide. This proposal would, in effect, add an additional layer of inexperienced retail inspectors to inspect only one out of the many types of foods restaurants provide. This would appear to run counter to the goals of the President’s Food Safety Initiative and the concept of an “integrated food safety system” which is attempting to stop government waste and duplication and encourage agencies to coordinate regulatory efforts.

The interjection of inspectors trained to inspect slaughterhouses, enforcing regulations more commonly imposed on processors, may introduce a great deal of conflict and confusion at retail establishments. The disruptive and negative effect this will have on both restaurant operators and the undermining of state and local regulatory officials cannot be discounted. For example, it would be disruptive, and a serious undermining of regulatory authority, if a restaurant operator were to have a meat inspector from FSIS inspect his establishment shortly after a visit by the local health department. Because of the differing focus and background it is assured that the two inspectors would point out different violations. The net effect of the duplicative and overlapping inspections would be to confuse the operator, undermine both inspectors’ efforts, and waste tax dollars. Furthermore, FSIS has not offered any evidence to suggest that increased inspection oversight is needed in restaurants and retail establishments. The implied purpose of the proposed FSIS in-distribution model program is to focus inspections to make food safer and thereby reduce illnesses. However, before inspections can be focused, we believe that FSIS must properly determine gaps in inspection and the areas in which the greatest need for inspection oversight exists. Rather than overlap inspection in an already well-regulated industry segment, we suggest that filling gaps in inspection would be far more efficacious. Additional testing of food in restaurants does not produce safer foods for consumers. Logic would dictate that testing at the end of the food chain is generally ineffective at preventing illness. By the time definitive results of restaurant sample tests have been obtained, the food will have been served and ingested by the consumer.  Instead, resources should be devoted to ensuring that the food that enters the restaurant is safe for consumers.Shifting in-plant inspections to the distribution chain is contrary to the fundamental tenets of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) program, including the principal goal of establishing a risk-based, prevention-oriented system.Under the current FSIS retail sampling program for ground beef, FSIS has tested more than 26,000 samples of ground beef since 1996.  Of these, only 25 have tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 and none of those samples were connected to an outbreak of illness.Accordingly, under HACCP, retail testing is of no more than limited utility.Under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act, placement of the federal mark of inspection on a meat or poultry product at a federally inspected plant constitutes a determination that the product is not adulterated. HACCP would dictate that FSIS employ its resources to find better ways to ensure that the mark is not applied to contaminated or misbranded products before they leave the federally inspected plant. Real prevention of food-borne illness will occur by devoting resources to ensuring that the food entering restaurants and retail establishments is safe. Finally, the proposed in-distribution model test project is insufficiently justified and, in our view, ill-conceived.The justifications and goals stated for the program are in helping “the Agency demonstrate the feasibility of significantly increasing the frequency of certain tasks that are now performed outside of federally inspected plants” (emphasis added).However, before addressing whether it is feasible or possible to increase the performance of certain tasks, we submit that the Agency should first determine the value of increasing these tasks. Although this is a pilot project, FSIS states that “eventually, ID inspection in the test locations will evolve into a permanent system nationwide.” This statement reveals that the Agency has reached its ultimate conclusion before the value of the project has even been established through the pilot. The activities in the draft project for the inspection personnel appear to have been selected based on the current activities inspectors have been trained to conduct in meat plants. Thus FSIS appears to be trying to move inspectors and inspection activities out to the distribution channels simply to accomplish a reduction of inspectors in the plants without an adequate analysis of the appropriate mechanisms for improving food safety at those levels. As an alternative, we recommend that FSIS consider redeploying inspectors to an area that is not already fully regulated and that may provide for meaningful improvement to the safety of the food supply, such as inspection of imported food products at ports of entry. According to an April, 1998 Government Accounting Office report, current efforts of the federal government to ensure the safety of imported foods are inconsistent and unreliable (GAO/RCED-98-103, April 30, 1998).A subsequent GAO report specifically recommends redirecting some of the resources FSIS currently appropriates to carcass-by-carcass slaughter inspections to “food safety activities that better reduce the threat of foodborne illness,” such as improving FDA’s oversight of imported foods by assisting foreign countries in developing equivalent food safety systems or improving oversight of imported foods at ports of entry. “Food Safety: Opportunities to Redirect Federal Resources and Funds Can Enhance Effectiveness” (GAO/RCED-92-224, August 1998). We are deeply committed to assuring food safety and continuously strive to provide the safest food products possible to our customers. To this end, we have taken substantive steps to improve the safety of all foods served in restaurants and we hope to encourage continued progress in the future. We look forward to working further with FSIS on our common goals in the area of food safety. Please feel free to contact us at any time regarding these comments. Steven Grover, R.E.H.S.
Vice President for Technical Services, Public Health and Safety