WASHINGTON – Notice 05-09, which has been issued by the Food Safety and Inspection Service, instructs inspection personnel on how to determine whether establishments that receive, grind, or otherwise process raw beef products are employing adequate measures to address E. coli O157:H7, according to The American Meat Institute. This notice is necessary because of the rate at which the F.S.I.S. is finding E. coli O157:H7 in products, the agency contends.

Enforcement, investigations and analysis officers are provided with specific criteria that they must consider when they assess whether establishments have adequate support for how, based on their hazard analysis, they address E. coli O157:H7 in their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point systems. Consumer-safety inspectors are also provided with guidelines on how to conduct verification activities at establishments that use critical control points to prevent, eliminate or reduce E. coli O157:H7 in raw beef products or that use their Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures or another prerequisite program to prevent occurrence of this pathogen.

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