An Economic Assessment of Food Safety Regulations

Historical Background

U.S. Meat and Poultry Inspection Before 1996

U.S. inspection of meat and poultry products began in

1891, when Congress provided for inspection of salted

pork and bacon in response to European fears of

trichinosis, a parasite transmitted by eating or handling

raw pork.  The legislation provided for inspection when

required by an importing country or when requested by a

purchaser, seller, or exporter (Roberts, 1983).  Demand

by packing houses for inspection services exceeded

expectations.  Consequently, USDA requested that

Congress appropriate enough money to extend inspec-

tions to “cover all animals slaughtered for human food in

order to protect American consumers” (USDA, Bureau of

Animal Industry, 1906, p. 69).

The Congress acted on this request in 1906, in part

because of conditions exposed by Upton Sinclair’s book,

The Jungle.  Sinclair portrayed the Chicago stockyards

as unsanitary, rodent-infested places where dead cattle

were secretly butchered at night and sausages were

composed of unsanitary and harmful ingredients.  In

response, the Congress added a meat inspection

amendment to the annual Agricultural Appropriation Bill.

The 1906 Act required the Federal inspection of all meat

crossing State lines; the first inspection was to be

conducted in the slaughterhouse, with subsequent

inspections any time the meat was further processed or

sold to another company.

Federal poultry inspection began as a voluntary program,

on an ad-hoc basis, and was formalized under the

authority of the 1946 Agricultural Marketing Act.  How-

ever, the expansion of the poultry industry (from 1 million

broilers raised annually in the 1930’s to over 1 billion in

1957) and new scientific knowledge about the communi-

cability of poultry diseases to workers were the principal

factors leading to the 1957 Poultry Products Inspection

Act.  This Act mandated the Federal inspection of every

poultry carcass that crossed State lines.

In 1962, motivated by a desire to lower costs, the House

Appropriations Committee required the Secretary of

Agriculture to survey all State inspection programs.  It

was thought that USDA could simply certify State inspec-

tion programs and thereby save Federal inspection

dollars.  At that time, however, only 26 States required

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Economic Research Service/USDA

An Economic Assessment of Food Safety Regulations

adequately target and reduce microbial pathogens on

raw meat and poultry.  Since bacteria such as 

E. coli

O157:H7 or 

Salmonella could not be detected by organo-

leptic inspection, they remained present in meat and

poultry products delivered to distributors and consumers.

To close this gap, the FSIS began efforts to strengthen

the meat and poultry inspection process in the early

1990’s.  On February 3, 1995, the FSIS published a

proposal to mandate that all federally inspected meat

and poultry plants: