Livestock Carcasses and Poultry Carcasses Contaminated With Visible Fecal Material

The Food Safety and Inspection Service is publishing this notice to assure that the owners and operators of federally inspected slaughter establishments are aware that the Agency views its ``zero tolerance'' for visible fecal material as a food safety standard. Fecal material is a vehicle for microbial pathogens, and microbiological contamination is a food safety hazard that is reasonably likely to occur in the slaughter production process. In controlling microbiological contamination, a hazard analysis and critical control point plan for slaughter must be designed, among other things, to ensure that, by the point of post-mortem inspection of livestock carcasses or when poultry carcasses enter the chilling tank, no visible fecal material is present.