Food Safety and Inspection Service

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is the public health regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that United States' commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. The FSIS draws its authority from the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 and the Egg Products Inspection Act of 1970. The FSIS also acts as a national health department and is responsible for the safety of public food-related establishments as well as business investigation.

Food products under the jurisdiction of the FSIS, and thus subject to inspection, are those that contain more than 3% meat or 2% poultry products, with several exceptions, and egg products (liquid, frozen or dried). Shell eggs, meat and poultry products not under the jurisdiction of the FSIS are under the jurisdiction of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FSIS is led by the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety.