Listeria Monocytogenes Contamination of Ready-to-Eat Products

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is publishing this document to inform manufacturers of ready-to-eat livestock and poultry products of the Agency's views about the application of the hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) system regulations to contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. FSIS believes that the findings from testing a range of ready-to- eat products and information from investigations of outbreaks of listeriosis constitute changes that could affect an establishment's hazard analysis or alter the HACCP plan for affected products. Therefore, establishments must reassess their HACCP plans for ready-to- eat livestock and poultry products. If reassessment results in a determination that Listeria monocytogenes contamination is a food safety hazard reasonably likely to occur in the establishment's production process, then it is a type of microbiological contamination that must be addressed in a HACCP plan. In this document, FSIS is setting out several factors that it believes an establishment should consider when performing its reassessment. Also, FSIS is making guidance material available that establishments may find helpful. (See ADDRESSES). FSIS invites comments on the factors addressed in this document and on its guidance material.