"Performance Standards for the Production of Processed Meat and Poultry Products" Submitted by:

member of the USDA Food Safety Consortium and the National Alliance for Food Safety. It brings forth our observations relative to the effectiveness of the current production and regulatory system for ensuring the safety of ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products, and provides our view of the design of future production systems based on stringent, scientifically validated and verified HACCP concepts. KSU research data validating various antimicrobial intervention systems are discussed to support the overriding concept that RTE product manufacturing must incorporate a true pathogen "kill step " (critical control point; CCP) at the finished product stage to ultimately ensure product safety. In addition to this CCP, several supporting programs and technologies are discussed as additional requirements for ensuring continuous pathogen control of specific product types (i.e. sliced luncheon meats). These programs and technologies have been highly developed in other manufacturing and service industries, and can logically be implemented in the RTE meat and poultry manufacturing sectors