It should be reasonable to expect that any wild game meat offered to you for purchase is adequately inspected for wholesomeness and sanitation. Frequently, however, wild game meat available for purchase is not inspected. This article describes how to determine if the meat you buy is fully inspected, by whom, and why you should be concerned if it is not.
Who inspects wild game meat?
Surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is not required to inspect wild game meats. The inspection of most traditional meats in the U.S. is regulated by the "Federal Meat Act" and the "Federal Poultry Act." Within these acts, specific meats such as beef, pork, and chicken are named as "amenable" to inspection by the USDA. It is illegal to offer these meats for sale in interstate commerce without USDA inspection. Meat can also be inspected by a state agency such as the state department of agriculture or the state department of health. State inspected meat can be legally sold within that state only.
Confusion arises from the fact that most wild game meats are not named in the Federal Meat Act. These "non amenable" meats are not even considered "meat" by the USDA under their interpretation of the Federal Meat Act. This leaves the requirement for inspection of wild game meats in a vague regulatory "never-never land" as far as federal laws are concerned. In theory, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has technical responsibility for the safety of all foods not named in these acts, but they have no meat inspection capability.
Why should you be concerned?
In today's atmosphere of lawsuits for almost any reason, serving meat that has not been properly inspected is inviting litigation. Your business cannot risk a suit on this basis. In addition, you will almost certainly be in violation of your city or county health codes that state that any meat served to the public must be from an "approved source." At Broken Arrow Ranch, we carry Product Liability Insurance of $5,000,000.00 that offers protection against a lawsuit. If you are buying game meats from another vendor, ask them how much product liability insurance they carry and ask for a copy of their insurance certificate to be certain that it will protect you.
How can you be sure the meat has been properly inspected?
Every inspected meat product is required to be packaged with a label indicating the agency inspecting the meat. The label will have a small logo shaped like a triangle, circle, (or even the state of Texas) which includes a number identifying the establishment in which it was processed. If the label does not have this mark, the meat is not inspected.
How is Broken Arrow Ranch game meat inspected?
All of our deer and antelope are harvested in the field under full inspection by the Texas Department of Health Meat Inspection Division. Since wild boar are "pork" and are amenable to inspection under the Federal Meat Act, they are slaughtered at a federally inspected processing plant.
Since we harvest truly wild, free-ranging deer and antelope on remote Texas ranches, the inspection must be done in the field as the animals are harvested and processed. We accomplish this with a unique procedure that includes a completely mobile and self-contained slaughterhouse. All animals are humanely harvested in the field to minimize stress. They can only be skinned and eviscerated inside our mobile processing trailer where the inspector examines the organs for any signs of disease (post-mortem examination) and monitors the complete procedure for good sanitation practices.
