On May 7, 2012, FSIS announced that its traceback policy was about to change. Previously, in the event of a positive E. coli O157:H7 regulatory finding in finished ground beef, or in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak linked to ground beef, FSIS rarely would attempt to demine the original source of the contamination. Under FSIS’ new policy, however, every positive regulatory sample, and every foodborne illness outbreak, is now far more likely to trigger an investigation to find the original source of the contamination.
Indeed, as part of this change, FSIS will dedicate far more resources to identify the original upstream supplier of contaminated trim. Thus, moving forward, in the event of a positive regulatory sample or a foodborne illness outbreak, these new agency investigations will be focused on the supplier (or suppliers) of any raw beef trim that was used by a processor to make the ground beef at issue.