Carcass Inflaters Need|Own Rules, Says USDA

WASHINGTON (CN) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service plans to allow slaughterhouses and meat preparers to inflate carcasses with air if they develop, implement, and maintain written sanitary rules.      The agency wants to remove the controls from federal meat inspection regulations, and allow establishments to write down and implement their own inflation procedures that avoid unsanitary conditions and adulterating the product. The agency proposes to require that slaughterhouses and meat preparers incorporate these controls into their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plans or sanitation standard operating procedures or other prerequisite programs.     Carcasses may be inflated during meat dressing procedures to make it easier to skin the head, and remove hides and foot hair from the carcasses.     Click the document icon for this regulation and others.