USDA: Proposal to Permit Cooked Pork Rind Imports
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is proposing to allow, under certain conditions, the importation of cooked pork rinds--a snack food made from deep-fried pork skins--from regions where foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), swine vesicular disease (SVD), African swine fever (ASF) and classical swine fever (CSF) are considered to exist.
2 July 2008
2 minute read
In order to be eligible for importation into the United States, all pork and pork products imported from regions where these diseases exist must be cooked or cured in such a manner that the pathogens of concern are inactivated. After preparing a risk assessment, APHIS has concluded that the pork skin cooking methods examined exceed these requirements. The pork skins would be deep-fried, or baked and then deep-fried, for an extended period. Both of these cooking processes exceed APHIS’ regulatory requirement for cooked meat.
To further safeguard U.S. animal health, the pork would have to be processed at a USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service-approved facility and all shipments accompanied by a foreign animal disease certificate from the country of origin.
FMD, SVD, ASF and CSF are contagious viral diseases. They are not transmissible from animals to humans and do not affect human health. APHIS has a strong system in place for detecting and responding to outbreaks of foreign animal diseases and places trade restrictions on affected regions to protect against the introduction of diseases of concern.
