FSIS said it is taking the action in light of recent disclosures of melamine in certain imported food products, and that it believed it would be prudent to conduct a small amount of sampling in meat and poultry products.

Investigators from the Compliance and Investigations Division of the Office of Program Evaluation, Enforcement and Review will collect certain types of products at retail stores and send samples to FSIS laboratories to test for the presence of melamine.

The agency said it will focus on meat and poultry products that contain milk-derived ingredients such as non-fat dried milk, casein, whey, evaporated milk and milk powder.

The following products will be tested:

• Baby food (containing a significant amount of meat or poultry products)
• Cooked sausages (including hot dogs or frankfurters with and without cheese products)
• Breaded chicken (bite-sized morsels or nuggets with and without cheese products)
• Meatballs
• Meat and poultry wrapped in dough and pizza (including calzones)

FSIS says it will begin random retail sampling in the next two weeks, with a total of 45 samples per week over a 12-week period.

Further Reading

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