usda-fsis

On July 7th the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published guidance for Importing Meat, Poultry, and Egg Products into the United States.  FSIS is the public health regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that domestic and imported meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged.

The document includes information on the requirements for importing these types of products including:

  • Products must originate from eligible countries and from establishments or plants that are certified to export to the United States.
  • Each consignment must have an electronic inspection certification or a paper inspection certificate issued by an authorized official of the foreign government agency responsible for the inspection and certification of the product.
  • All imported shipments of meat, poultry, and egg products must be presented to FSIS for inspection and the importer, or their authorized agent, must apply for FSIS inspection of imported product prior to the cargo arriving in the U.S.  This is done by either submitting the paper FSIS Form 9540-1 (Import Inspection Application) to the FSIS inspection personnel in the a designated official import inspection establishment; or the electronic application data (Partner Government Agency (PGA) Message Set) into the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
  • If an importer fails to present their cargo from immediate inspection FSIS will request, through CBP, a redelivery of the shipment and appropriate penalties.  The shipment will be deemed ineligible for FSIS inspection and, depending on the shipment status, it may be either destroyed or returned to the country of origin.

CustomsNow’s ABI software can submit the FSISA PGA data set in order to meet their prior notice requirement.  Please contact us if you are interested in learning more.