Safe Meat and Poultry Act of 2013
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Safe Meat and Poultry Act of 2013 - Amends the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act (the Acts) to include in the definition of "adulterated" a product bearing or containing a pathogen or contaminant associated with serious illness or death.
Amends the Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994 to: (1) define specified food safety terms, and (2) set forth civil penalties for food safety law violations.
Directs the Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) to: (1) identify significant foodborne disease pathogens, (2) determine levels of food product contamination, (3) establish public health goals to reduce foodborne illness, (4) prescribe pathogen reduction performance standards and implement a sampling program to determine food establishment compliance, (5) establish an accredited meat and meat food product testing program, and (6) implement adulterated food tracing protocols.
Requires certain food establishments to sample for the presence of identified pathogens at any production or processing point.
Permits banning food imports from countries refusing inspections by the Secretary.
Sets forth notice and recall provisions.
Requires the Secretary to: (1) maintain an active surveillance system of food, food products, and epidemiological evidence; (2) assess the frequency and sources of food-caused human illness; (3) establish guidelines for a system to take and analyze food samples; (4) establish a national public education program on food safety; and (5) conduct specified research concerning food safety.
Establishes penalties under the Acts for the introduction into commerce of unsafe or misbranded products of up to $100,000, 20 years' imprisonment, or both.
Requires a study of worker safety in the meat packing and poultry processing industry, including the relationship between line speed and worker safety.
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
- Introduced in Senate Formatted Text PDF Formatted XML
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 1502: Safe Meat and Poultry Act of 2013. 113th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/113-S-1502/
"S. 1502: Safe Meat and Poultry Act of 2013." 113th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/113-S-1502/.
S. 1502, 113th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/113-S-1502/.
[S. 1502: Safe Meat and Poultry Act of 2013](https://openamerica.io/bill/113-S-1502/)