1. Concepts of In-Distribution Mary Cutshall Office of Policy, Program Development, and Evaluation

2. Current Thinking What is the best approach to ensuring food safety in-distribution? How do we best use resources at the Federal, State, and local levels?

3. Who? 11 in-distribution inspectors Partnerships with state and local jurisdictions

4. What? Verify safety of products in-distribution Collect information –to determine how to improve approaches to verifying food safety in-distribution –to evaluate in-plant HACCP programs

5. Verification Food safety-driven “Other Consumer Protection” concerns also addressed

6. Collect Information To determine how to improve approaches to verifying food safety and OCP in-distribution

7. Collect Information To evaluate in-plant HACCP programs

8. When? In-distribution inspectors have been in place since March 2000 Evaluation ongoing for duration of project

9. Where? Cold storage, warehouses Retail stores Salvage operations, brokers Institutions Transporters, renderers

10. How? Apply performance standards in current regulations Determine whether conditions exist that may render product adulterated or misbranded Sampling

11. How? (continued) Proactive verification Interactive relationships Information collection

12. Partnerships Use Federal, State, and local resources Cooperative agreements Minnesota, Virginia, Alabama

13. Enforcement Actions Provisions of Meat and Poultry Acts apply Violations will be referred to district offices

14. Other Consumer Protections Some activities currently carried out within the plant may be best carried out while products are in distribution channels. Nutrition labeling verification

15. Evaluation Ongoing feedback loop Various types of information will be used for evaluation