USDA Proposes New Water Retention Rule for Meat and Poultry

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing regulations to limit the amount of water retained by raw, single-ingredient, meat and poultry products as a result of post-evisceration processing, such as carcass washing and chilling. The agency wants to prohibit meat and poultry processors from adding water to their products unless it is necessary to meet food safety requirements. Extra water weight would have to appear on package labels.

Under the USDA proposal, plants would have to provide USDA with data to show that water remaining in their products is the result of processes used to meet food safety requirements, such as rinsing to reduce Salmonella bacteria. Companies could make a labeling claim if their products do not retain water during processing.

The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service is proposing the rule as part of an overall regulatory review announced in 1995, and in response to a federal district court ruling last July that ruled that previous levels for water in poultry were not based on scientific data.

FSIS published a protocol for collecting data about washing and chilling systems in plants in December 1997. The agency also requested data about standards the industry sets for chilling systems and how testing is conducted to determine water retention.

The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register, September 11, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 176) and can be found via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov][DOCID:fr11se98-38]