Summary

In 1993, hamburger contaminated with the E. coli bacteria killed four children and made hundreds of people ill. As a result, the Agriculture Department (USDA) proposed that each meat and poultry slaughter and processing plant adopt a system of preventive control for food safety, known as the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system, to be monitored by USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. Federal and state meat and poultry inspection agencies would be required to take on some additional monitoring activities under this proposal. This report (1) describes state meat and poultry inspection programs, (2) provides information on the expected effects of USDA's proposal on state inspection programs, and (3) discusses the proposal's likely effects on small plants.

GAO found that: (1) FSIS has cooperative agreements with 27 states for state meat and poultry inspection programs; (2) the FSIS proposal to extend its Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points System to the states will increase costs to states because their programs must be equal to the federal program; (3) costs to the states will be minimal because FSIS will provide training and fund half the cost of new equipment; (4) small processing plants will be disproportionately affected by the costs of the new regulation; and (5) the processing functions that small plants perform will determine the extent of costs incurred by individual plants.