Washington - Draft guidelines for meat plants' reworking of hamburger -- the practice blamed for the record recall by Hudson Foods last autumn -- will be issued soon by the U.S. Agriculture Department, a USDA official said Monday.
"They will definitely be out in March and we plan to have a public meeting also in March," Margaret O'K.Glavin, deputy administrator of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said.
The USDA has worked to develop voluntary guidelines for meat plants since the massive recall last August of 25 million pounds of hamburger by Hudson Foods. The Nebraska plant's practice of reworking, or recycling bits of ground beef left at the end of each day, was linked to the large size of the recall.
Rather than being published in their entirety in the Federal Register, the draft set of guidelines will first be made available for industry and consumer comments, O'K.Glavin said.
"This issue needs full discussion and input from all groups, and that is what we hope to get," she added.
O'K.Glavin made her remarks in an interview following a panel discussion on food safety issues at the USDA's annual Agricultural Outlook forum on Monday.
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