Postimplementation Costs of Haccp and Ssop's in Great Plains Meat Plants1

The objective of this analysis was to determine the costs of the development and implementation of HACCP, SSOP's, Salmonella Performance Standards, and Generic E. coli Process Control Testing for small meat and poultry plants. USDA estimated these costs to be $0.0024 per pound with the release of the Pathogen Reduction Ruling. Weighted averages from two other studies estimating implementation costs were $0.0005 and $0.0139 per pound. To collect data and measure actual implementation costs, phone surveys and personal interviews were conducted with small meat (defined as having 10 or more employees but less than 500) slaughter and processing plants in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The analysis suggests that the plants incurred an average of $0.009 per pound in development and implementation costs for these regulations.