US pork plants can skip manual checks, relying on visual inspection
What happened
US food safety regulators ended mandatory manual checks for swine carcasses. Pork plants no longer have to cut open lymph nodes or palpate organs, and inspectors can be assigned more flexibly.
Why it matters
US pork plants previously had to perform specific manual checks on every carcass. This rule change means they can now rely on visual inspection, which saves labor and speeds up processing. It also gives federal inspectors more flexibility to focus on other tasks.
The signal
Watch for reports on whether pork plants increase their processing speed or reduce labor costs, and how federal inspectors are redeployed.