RANDOM GROUND BEEF TESTING IN STORES TO CONTINUE: USDA

JOANNA RAMEY

WASHINGTON (FNS) -- The controversial program of random testing of ground beef at supermarkets for the presence of E. coli bacteria will continue to be part of the government's blueprint for food safety.

So said Michael Taylor, administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Taylor confirmed at a press briefing here that the retail meat sampling program, implemented last year against protests from industry, won't be touched as part of a larger overhaul of federal food safety inspection practices, even though the program's testing methods have been criticized because thousands of samples taken from retail meat cases have produced only a handful of positive findings of E. coli.

Officials with USDA and the Food and Drug Administration met with reporters Jan. 18 to discuss their ongoing plans to rework the way the nation's food supply is tested. That effort is part of the larger mandate from President Clinton to reinvent government by streamlining the federal bureaucracy.

"Our testing programs at retail, we envision will continue," Taylor said."Obviously contamination does begin at the slaughterhouse but there is also opportunity for cross-contamination at retail."

In addition to already announced plans to require slaughterhouses and meat and poultry processors to implement Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points food safety programs, Taylor and his counterparts at FDA outlined other changes afoot in the way food is regulated by the government. They include:

Pilot programs to speed up the testing of food imports by using private, state and local laboratories.

Allowing discriptors like "low fat" or "light" to be used for standarized products like hot dogs and turkey ham made with substitute ingredients that render the food more healthy to eat.