FSIS Still 'Confident' in Australia Meat Inspection System, Says Uptick in Violations Not 'Significant'

An uptick in food safety violations found in Australian meat products is minor, and does not raise larger concerns over the overall safety of Australia’s meat inspection system, an FSIS spokesperson said by email in response to a recent report from Food and Water Watch. The advocacy group had said an increase in “zero-tolerance” food safety issues found in random sampling by FSIS should lead to immediate revocation of Australia’s ability to export meat to the U.S. (see 2110270056).

“FSIS has confidence in the safety of product from Australia that enters into U.S. commerce,” the agency spokesperson said. “Furthermore, the system correctly identified the lots in question as product that did not meet FSIS’ standards and prevented them from entering the U.S. food supply.”

In its report, Food and Water Watch said a Freedom of Information Act request turned up 19 instances wherein shipments from Australia were refused by FSIS in 2019 and 2020 for reasons deemed “zero-tolerance” by the agency. That “alarming increase” is grounds to grant the advocacy group’s 2014 request to revoke a FSIS equivalency finding for Australia’s meat inspection system, effectively banning imports of Australian meat.

Through its spokesperson, FSIS disagreed. “FSIS does not consider this minimal increase in violations in 2020 to be a significant concern,” the spokesperson said. “Although the absolute number of these point-of-entry violations was marginally higher in 2020 in comparison to previous years, that number without proper context tells an incomplete story. When you look at the total lots of product imported into the United States from Australia that were examined, the percentage rate of failures observed is extremely low (less than 1%),” he said.

FSIS’s multi-tiered verification process, including regular examination of foreign food inspection laws and policies, audits and import sampling, “provides confidence in the safety of product from Australia that enters into U.S. commerce,” the FSIS spokesperson said. “Although the absolute number of these port-of-entry violations is higher in 2020 than it was in 2018, when you look at the total lots of product examined, the percentage rate of failures observed is extremely low.”