FSIS adjusts catfish inspection process; transition period ends

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) adjusted inspection coverage at catfish slaughter facilities on Sept. 1, the same day an 18-month transition period ended. The transition period’s end marks the full transfer of responsibility for inspecting domestic and imported catfish to FSIS from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FSIS confirmed it was adjusting inspection coverage in a Sept. 1 announcement published in the Federal Register. The agency accepted comments on the change earlier in the summer. September 1 was also the date that “full enforcement” of FSIS catfish inspection also got underway. During the transition period, FSIS found catfish slaughter is a streamlined, automated process that combines slaughter with processing in the same continuous operation “more like meat processing-only operations than like slaughter operations for other species amenable to the FMIA (Federal Meat Inspection Act).”