The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources invites stakeholders to provide comments on
Cooked turkey meat from the United States—draft review by 15 October 2016.
16 August 2016
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (the department), which has statutory authority for managing biosecurity risk of imported goods, initiated this review in response to requests for market access for cooked turkey meat for human consumption from the United States of America (US) into Australia.
This review takes into account current scientific information, international standards developed by the World Organisation for Animal Health, as well as information in the Generic Import Risk Analysis Report for Chicken Meat (Biosecurity Australia 2008) (chicken meat IRA). This review includes additional hazards relevant to turkeys that were not considered in the chicken meat IRA.
The review has identified and categorised biosecurity hazards associated with the importation of cooked turkey meat from the US. Risk assessments of hazards were undertaken as required.
The review recommends sourcing turkey meat from abattoirs and processing facilities approved by the US Department of Agriculture, importing muscle meat only (no whole birds), and cooking the meat to a minimum core temperature of 76.6 °C (170 °F) for at least 30 minutes. These measures will reduce any biosecurity risks to a level that is consistent with Australia’s appropriate level of protection.
Submissions proposing equivalent measures for cooking time and temperature will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
The department invites comments on the scientific aspects of the proposed risk management measures associated with the importation of cooked turkey meat from the US.
Comments on the review should be submitted by 15 October 2016 to:
Animal Biosecurity
Department of Agriculture and Water Resources
GPO Box 858
CANBERRA ACT 2601
Telephone: +61 2 6272 4465
Facsimile: +61 2 6272 3856
Email: Animal Biosecurity
The draft report is available via the department’s website Biosecurity Advices 2016.
All submissions received on the draft report will be carefully considered by Animal Biosecurity in finalising the review.
Please pass this notice to other interested parties. If those parties wish to be included in future communications on this matter they should contact Animal Biosecurity.
Confidentiality
Stakeholders are advised that, subject to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Privacy Act 1988, all submissions received in response to Biosecurity Advices will be publicly available and may be listed or referred to in any papers or reports prepared on the subject matter.
The Commonwealth reserves the right to reveal the identity of a respondent unless a request for anonymity accompanies the submission. Where a request for anonymity does not accompany the submission the respondent will be taken to have consented to the disclosure of his or her identity for the purposes of Information Privacy Principle 11 of the Privacy Act. The contents of the submission will only be treated as confidential if they are marked ‘confidential’ and they can be classified as such in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.
Andrew Cupit
Assistant Secretary
Animal Biosecurity