Meat+Poultry - August 2021 - 97

FOOD SAFETY
SIZING UP SAFETY
But that's not to say that everything with
HACCP has always been perfect - or easy.
Chris Young, executive director of the
American Association of Meat Processors
(AAMP), a trade association representing
small, very small and medium-sized meat and
poultry processors, said HACCP was a burden
to small meat processors, especially in the
beginning, when the industry had to learn what
it was and how to implement it.
AAMP played and continues to play a
major role in helping the small processors
with HACCP.
" In the beginning, some plants didn't
want to take on such a major change, so they
closed or changed their operations to customexempt, "
Young said.
Changing to a new food safety system,
with a massive revamping of the meat and
poultry inspection culture that existed for so
long, has been a challenge to small operations
where, unlike large companies, there are not
microbiologists and scientists on
staff. But the small processors got
plenty of help, from organizations
like AAMP and land grant
universities across the country,
who set up HACCP training
courses, and who still run them.
That said, Young pointed out
that HACCP has played a major
role in improving food safety in
the meat and poultry industry,
including the small industry.
" HACCP has been a great
improvement for the industry, "
he noted. " It forced everyone to
understand the food safety side
of processing. It made people
look at their processes and find
the areas where they can control
the food safety aspects. It made
the industry, the small and very
small processors, aware of and
understand the hazards that exist
and controls they could use in
making safe products. "
But that doesn't mean it's not
difficult or a challenge at times.
Young thinks the HACCP models
coming out from USDA these days
have been more useful to small
and very small plants. " A lot of models USDA
put out in the past, in the beginning, were
really more suited to the operations of large
plants. I'm encouraged to see under the current
FSIS leadership assistance and help geared to
small plants, " he said.
A challenge underway now, in which
AAMP is playing a leadership role, is HACCP
validation requirements, which have become
important. Of particular concern are Appendix
A and B, which set up thermal processing and
stabilization (cooling down) requirements.
" The small industry has always been more
dependent on being able to follow spelled-out
requirements like this, " Young explained. " One
reason is the very small and small processors
still make big hams, for example, so it's
important they can meet these requirements. "
Young has been meeting with USDA-FSIS
for several years to make sure the agency can
come up with requirements that processors in
the small and very small industry can meet.
Educating processors, both small and
" Before HACCP,
in the days of
'command and
control,' there
was no real
playbook for
food safety. "
- AL ALMANZA
http://spartanchemical.com
Meat+Poultry - August 2021

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