Mission:
To protect the health and welfare of consumers and the public by assuring meat and poultry products produced are wholesome, unadulterated, and properly marked, labeled, and packaged.
What we do:
The Vermont Meat Inspection Program provides inspection services for meat and poultry slaughter operations, simple processing for ground products and individual cuts, complex processing for products such as ham, bacon, summer sausage, and Jerky products, and much more.The inspection of these products and processes allows local producers to market their meat and poultry products to consumers, restaurants, retailers, and wholesalers throughout the state.
- The Vermont Legislature found that meat and poultry products are an important source of the state’s total supply of food, and it was essential to the public interest that the health and welfare of consumers be protected by assuring that these commodities are wholesome, unadulterated, and properly marked, labeled, and packaged.
- The Vermont Meat Inspection Section was established by the Vermont State Legislature in 1967, after passage of the Wholesome Meat Act in 1967, which allowed the creation of state meat inspection programs that were run in a manner “equal to” that of the federal inspection system.
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets has a cooperative agreement with the USDA Food safety Inspection Service (FSIS) which allows the state of Vermont to provide inspection services to meat and poultry slaughter and processing facilities that produce product to be sold within Vermont.
The Federal Meat Inspection Act (as amended by the Wholesome Meat Act, December 15, 1967), the Federal Poultry Products Inspection Act, and Title 6 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated Chapters 201 (Humane Slaughter of Livestock) and Chapter 204 (Preparation of Livestock and Poultry Products), provide the legal basis for the rules and regulations that are applied to attain this objective.
