Recommendations A.M.S. will make for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year are:
? A.M.S. will begin to formally take into account the food-safety record of vendors' commercial sales. Prospective or current A.M.S. vendors demonstrating a long-term poor food-safety record in the commercial market will become ineligible to supply ground beef to the School Lunch Program until they demonstrate to A.M.S. the conditions resulting in their food-safety lapses on the commercial market will not impact the safety of products they are providing into federal food and nutrition assistance programs.
? A.M.S. will tighten its microbiological testing protocols. A.M.S. will align or exceed the F.S.I.S. E. coli O157:H7 N-60 testing protocols for boneless beef with F.S.I.S. protocols that should be issued in the summer of 2010.
? A.M.S. will tighten its microbiological criteria for U.S.D.A.-purchased ground beef. A.M.S. will tighten its microbiological upper specification limits and critical limits. Plants will need to maintain a process that consistently beats the upper specification limits and no product will be accepted from any vendor that exceeds the critical limits.
? A.M.S. will increase its microbiological sampling frequency. Microbiological sampling frequencies will increase to every 15 minutes of production.
? A.M.S. will institute additional rejection criteria for source trimmings used to manufacture U.S.D.A.- purchased ground beef. A.M.S. will now reject individual loads of beef trimmings that exceed A.M.S.’s new critical limits for indicator organisms.
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