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March 21, 2025
Secretary Rollins Takes Action to Streamline U.S. Pork and Poultry Processing
On March 17, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced new actions to reduce burdens on the U.S. pork and poultry industries, allowing for greater efficiency while maintaining food safety standards. The directive instructs the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to eliminate outdated administrative requirements that have slowed production and added unnecessary costs for American producers.
“America leads the world in pork and poultry production, and we are committed to ensuring our producers remain competitive on a global scale without being held back by unnecessary bureaucracy,” said Secretary Rollins. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are cutting unnecessary red tape, empowering businesses to operate more efficiently, and strengthening American agriculture –all while upholding the highest food safety standards.”
Under the new policy, FSIS will extend waivers allowing pork and poultry facilities to maintain higher line speeds, ensuring they can meet demand without excessive government interference. Rulemaking to formalize these speed increases will begin immediately. Additionally, FSIS will no longer require plants to submit redundant worker safety data, as extensive research has confirmed no direct link between processing speeds and workplace injuries. These reforms will strengthen U.S. food production, reduce costs for producers, and support a more resilient supply chain.
FSIS Signs eCERT MOU with Korea
On March 12, 2024, FSIS Administrator Dr. Denise Eblen signed an electronic shipment certification (eCert) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with her counterpart from Korea. The signing commemorated the ongoing bilateral food safety cooperation on eCert of meat and poultry products between FSIS and the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. eCert is the secure, government-to-government exchange of electronic certification data.
The MOU recognizes the food safety eCert activities that FSIS and Korea have completed and establishes a foundation for additional efforts to advance an eCert exchange in the future. The signing was followed by a meeting between FSIS and Korea technical experts to progress development and implementation of eCert.
On March 31, 2025, FSIS plans to deploy three key enhancements to the Public Health Information System (PHIS) Export module to make the 9060-export application process more efficient for export applicants. The improvements include:
- PHIS will hold the applicant’s search results on the 9060-application list while the applicant opens and closes an individual 9060-application record. This will reduce the need for repetitive and time-consuming searching and filtering.
- The Key Word Search box on the 9060-application list will be split into the two search boxes to reduce the amount of data PHIS consumes, making the search operate more efficiently:
- The Application Number search box will allow applicants to search for one or more complete or partial application numbers separated by commas.
- The Establishment/Reviewer search box will allow applicants to search by exporting establishment number, exporting establishment name, or FSIS reviewer name.
- PHIS will allow the applicant to edit more data fields in an original 9060-application after FSIS review begins to increase the opportunity for applicants to find and correct errors before final FSIS approval. Applicants will be able to edit the following data fields by unlocking an original application up until final approval by FSIS:
- Exporter name and address;
- Exporting establishment number format (e.g., with or without preceding letter);
- Export mark to be used;
- Importer name and address and destination country;
- Total net weight and certification statement checkboxes on the Product Summary page;
- All fields on the Product Details page;
- Access Control (can be edited even after FSIS approval);
- Add or remove statements or remarks; and
- Attach or delete supplemental and supportive documents.
NOTE: FSIS approvers may need to perform additional export verification or reinspect products to verify the accuracy of some edits.
NOTE: Data fields that can be edited on a replacement application will not change.
Today, FSIS updated the Import Presented Refused and Import Refusal Reason datasets on the Import and Export Data page. The Import Presented Refused dataset will include lot-level information for import volume along with import refusal data at the lot-level; the Import Refusal Reason is provided as a secondary dataset, providing each refusal reason as its own row to facilitate analysis.
The Import Presented Refused and Import Refusal Reason datasets are updated monthly and will be posted the third Friday of each month, with data broken out by fiscal year (FY), starting with data from FY 2014 (starting on October 1, 2013) through the most recent FY. These datasets are released in an open, non-proprietary comma separated value (csv) format. Instructions on how to open csv files using Excel are available on the FSIS website in the Comma Separated Values Guide section.
Available for Public Comment
FSIS seeks public comments on proposed rules and notices, which are viewable on the FSIS Federal Register & Rulemaking webpage. FSIS is currently seeking comments on the following:
Policy Update
FSIS notices and directives on public health and regulatory issues are available on the FSIS Policy webpage. The following policy update was recently issued:
FSIS Notice 07-25 - Procedures for Work-Related Fatalities, Injury, and Illness Recordkeeping and Annual Reporting Requirements
Export Requirements Update
The Library of Export Requirements has been updated for products for the following:
- St. Lucia
- North Macedonia
- Albania
- Costa Rica
- Namibia
- Japan
- Taiwan
- South Africa
- Mexico
- French Polynesia (Tahiti)
- Turkey
- Canada
Complete information can be found at the FSIS Import & Export Library.
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