“Members of the Safe Food Coalition wrote today to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urging him to finalize a rule to label mechanically tenderized beef products by the end of the year. The Secretary must then send the rule to the Office of Management and Budget for final approval. The letter is available here. If the rule is not finalized before December 31, 2014, then consumers will not see these labels until 2018. FSIS’ new rule about uniform compliance dates for meat and poultry labeling require all new labels to be implemented concurrently every two years.  In the current timeframe for implementation, labels finalized by December 31, 2014 will go into effect on January 1, 2016. Any labeling changes after December 31 will be implemented in the next cycle. Delays by USDA and OMB in finalizing the current proposed rule could mean that a proactive and preventive label, designed to protect public health, would not be implemented until 2018, leaving consumers vulnerable and in the dark for far too long. Often used on less expensive cuts of meat to increase tenderness, mechanically tenderized products (such as steaks and roasts) are repeatedly pierced by small needles or blades, thereby increasing the risk that pathogens located on the surface of the product will be transferred to the interior. After treatment, these non-intact steaks and roasts have a greater risk of being internally contaminated, yet they look no different than non-treated product.  Therefore, without a label, consumers have no indication that they are purchasing a high-risk product that needs to be cooked to a higher internal temperature to ensure safety.  Labeling of mechanically tenderized products would provide institutional cooks and consumers with important product information aimed at preventing illness…According to USDA, 88% of the beef establishments that performed mechanical tenderization did not use any pathogen-reduction intervention prior to treatment, and 82% of those facilities did not test the finished product. In addition, most of the beef establishments with mechanically tenderized beef operations listed 3-6 sources for their products, yet only 3% of the facilities cleaned and sanitized their equipment between batches of beef from different sources.  Instead, 94% of the facilities that used mechanical tenderization cleaned/sanitized daily at the end of production.  Following a once-a-day cleaning/sanitizing schedule greatly increases the likelihood of cross contamination when multiple sources are being treated at the same facility.”