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Foreign meat, poultry, eggs, and catfish with “equivalence status”
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) updated its “Equivalence Status Chart” yesterday. It’s a helpful guide for those who want to know where their food may be coming from. It includes country specific footnotes.
“Equivalence Status” is a grade assigned to foreign countries with a food safety inspection system that achieves a protection level for public health that is equivalent to that applied domestically in the United States for the FSIS-regulated product they wish to export.
Like its domestic responsibilities, FSIS is charged with determining the “Equivalent Status” for meat, poultry, eggs and egg products, and catfish species.
According to the agency’s instructions for foreign governments, a country’s food safety inspection system is to provide standards equivalent to FSIS to ensure other non-food safety requirements are met, such as humane handling, accurate labeling, and assurance that meat, poultry, or egg products are not economically adulterated.
It says “equivalence does not mean” that the country is required to develop and implement the same procedures that the U.S. does, but rather the country must objectively demonstrate how its procedures reach the U.S. level of protection.”
Countries wishing to become eligible to export meat, poultry, or egg products to the U.S. are responsible for demonstrating that they have a regulatory food safety inspection system that is equivalent to that of the U.S.
FSIS is this country’s Central Competent Authority (CCA) responsible for regulating and inspecting meat, poultry, and egg products. The CCA is a country’s national government authority that is responsible for ensuring the safety and truthful labeling of the food supply.
The U.S. is a party to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), which also is a FSIS responsibility as the international agreement sets out the basic international rules for food safety, animal, and plant health standards.
The largest group of countries that have met “equivalence” to export meat to the United States. They include:
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Bulgaria
Columbia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Dominican Republic
Estonia
Finland
Germany
Greece
Guatamala
Ireland
Italy
Korea
Latvia
Macedonia
Panama
Paraquay
Poland
Romania
Somoa
Spain
Switzerland
Countries on the “Equivalence Status Chart” for exporting poultry to the U.S. include:
Brazil
China
Columbia
Costa Rica
Croatia
El Salvador
Honduras
Japan
Mexico
Morocco
Poland
South Africa
Ukraine
The next largest group of countries may export eggs and egg products to the United States. They are:
Argentina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Denmark
Germany
Greece
Italy
Lithuania
Mexico
Poland
Romania
The final group includes countries cleared for exporting Siluriformes (catfish species) to the United States. This group includes:
Vietnam
Thailand
Nigeria
Jamaica
India
Guyana
El Salvador
Bangladesh
Source: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2017/03/foreign-meat-poultry-eggs-and-catfish-with-equivalence-status/
