USDA-FSIS Publishes Revised Food Safety Guideline for Egg Products
Updated to address stakeholder questions and to include additional scientific information, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) has published a revised version of its Food Safety Guideline for Egg Products.
The guideline is designed to help small and very small plants producing egg products meet the regulatory requirements under the Egg Products Inspection Regulations Final Rule, which was published in October 2020. It contains information to assist plants producing egg products that undergo pasteurization, heat treatment, cooling, freezing, or enzyme modification in complying with FSIS regulations; specifically, sanitation and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) requirements.
Since the Food Safety Guideline for Egg Products was published alongside the related final rule, FSIS has made the following changes to the guideline to address questions the agency received in response to the previous version:
- Included guidance on plant support for sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs), including less-than-daily (LTD) sanitation
- Added Bacillus cereus as an example of a potential hazard in egg products that undergo enzyme modification
- Included a section on cooking egg products in lieu of pasteurization
- Revised language, structure, and formatting to improve readability.
The revised guideline can be read here. Comments can be made on the guideline via the Federal Register under docket number FSIS-2024-0026.
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