WASHINGTON – The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced Wednesday that it has issued Directive 5100.1, Revision 1, to provide instructions to Enforcement, Investigations, and Analysis Officers (EIAOs) regarding the methodology they are to use when conducting comprehensive food safety assessments and how they are to document their findings.

The agency reissued the directive to include a section from chapter four of Directive 5000.1, Verifying an Establishment’s Food Safety System. The added information is in Part IX, Verification Plans. 

The FSIS added the information so that the directive addresses EIAO activities. It also includes additional methods on how to make and document recommendations.

The agency said that food safety assessment is supposed to consider all food safety aspects that relate to an establishment and its products, the nature and source of all materials received, the establishment’s processes and its environment. The EIAO is to assess the design and validity of the hazard analysis, HACCP plan; Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures, pre-requisite programs, testing programs, e.g., generic E. coli written procedures, and any other programs that constitute the establishment’s HACCP system.

The full directive can be seen at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISDirectives/5100.1Rev1.pdf

Source: American Meat Institute