Need To Complete New Registration Form and Importance of Compliance With Recordkeeping and Registration Requirements Under the Federal Meat and Poultry Products Inspection Regulations

Since 1970, FSIS has required registration by: Meat brokers; poultry products brokers; renderers; animal food manufacturers; wholesalers; warehousemen; and persons that engage in the business of buying, selling, transporting in commerce, or importing, any dead, dying, disabled, or diseased livestock (that is, cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules, or other equines) or poultry, or parts of the carcasses of livestock or poultry that have died otherwise than by slaughter. Also since 1970, FSIS has required these parties, all official establishments, and carriers and importers of poultry or livestock carcasses or parts or products of poultry or livestock carcasses to keep business records and to make such records available to FSIS employees upon request. Registration information and business records are critical in any FSIS investigation related to public health, food safety, or misbranding of meat or poultry products. For example, should Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), a neurogenetive disease in cattle, be introduced in the United States, registration information and business records will be crucial in tracing the source of BSE and in preventing its spread. FSIS intends to increase its enforcement of the registration and recordkeeping requirements to ensure that all businesses subject to the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Federal Poultry Products Inspection Act that are required to be registered with FSIS and/or to maintain business records are properly doing so. In this notice, FSIS is also informing the public that the Agency has developed a new registration form. Because this form requires that registrants provide certain information that was not required on the previous form, all parties required to register, including those that are currently registered, must complete the new form and submit it to FSIS. Parties must submit the new registration form to FSIS by March 22, 2004.