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Uruguay’s inspections of beef and lamb found "equivalent to that of United States"

March 30, 2020 - Food Safety News:

"Uruguay exports raw and processed beef and lamb products to the United States, and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) finds no reason that those shipments cannot continue."

"The FSIS performed an on-site equivalence verification audit in Uruguay Dec. 2 to Dec. 13, 2019, without identifying any systemic findings of shortcomings. The final report dated March 19, 2020, was a clean bill of health for the South American country."

"'The purpose of the audit was to determine whether Uruguay’s food safety inspection system governing raw and processed meat (i.e. beef and lamb) products remains equivalent to that the United States, with the ability to export meat products that are thermally processed, commercially sterile beef, ready-to-eat (RTE) salt-cured beef; RTE beef fully cooked without subsequent exposure tot he environment; RTE fully cooked beef; RTE fully-cooked beef; RTE dried beef; RTE acidified /fermented beef (without cooking); raw intact beef; and raw intact lamb to the United States,' says the report."

"'The FSIS concluded that Uruguay's meat food safety inspection system is organized to provide ultimate control, supervision, and enforcement of regulatory requirements,' according to the report."

"It says Uruguay’s 'has implemented sanitary operating procedures and a HACCP system to ensure controls of the food safety inspection system for raw and processed beef and lamb.' Further, the report says Uruguay 'has implemented microbiological and chemical residue testing that is organized and administered by the national government to verify the country’s food safety inspection system.'"