AskUSDA (2024)

FAQs

What is AskUSDA? ›

​​​ AskUSDA is a contact center that answers general inquiries from the public using trained agents and self-service options. To date, AskUSDA has partnered with 19 agencies to improve the customer experience offered to the public.

The guidance resource, askFSIS, is a Web-based computer application, designed to respond to technical and policy-related questions from FSIS inspectors, industry, consumers, other stakeholders, and the public.

FSIS protects public health by preventing illness from meat, poultry and egg products. We do this by ensuring these products are safe, wholesome and properly labeled. FSIS is part of a science-based national system to ensure food safety and food defense.

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.

An inspection mark on the label lets you know the meat or poultry product has been inspected and that it is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled. See FSIS' Inspection Programs.

Food Safety and Inspection Service.

FDA, through its Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), regulates foods other than the meat, poultry, and egg products regulated by FSIS. FDA is also responsible for the safety of drugs, medical devices, biologics, animal feed and drugs, cosmetics, and radiation emitting devices.

FSIS supports practices that promote accurate informative product labeling including voluntary statements on labels that alert people who have sensitivities or intolerances to the presence of specific ingredients.

FSIS collects and tests samples of domestic and imported meat (including Siluriformes fish products), poultry, and egg products for residues. The NRP assists FSIS in meeting its mission to protect the public's health by ensuring that meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and accurately labeled.