 Welcome. I'm Catherine Zox. And this educational video was created to give an accurate representation on how the United States Department of Agriculture regulations pertaining to specified risk materials are carried out at small and very small federal and state beef plants, as well as at custom exempt facilities. The material is being presented by the New York State Department of Agriculture and markets through a cooperative agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. At the bottom of the screen you will note several links to websites used as references for the information being provided on this video. The video's content is based on regulations in effect as of April 2007. Because changes take place, we strongly recommend you periodically check the USDA website for any possible changes. Before we visit the plant, let's take a moment to review the specified risk materials, or SRMs, in cattle. The diagram on the screen illustrates the parts of cattle identified as SRMs and the age when considered to be SRMs. The tonsils and distal ilium of the small intestine are considered SRMs in all cattle, regardless of age. In cattle 30 months of age or older, the SRMs are as follows, brain, skull, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, dorsal root ganglia, vertebral column, excluding the vertebrae of the tail, the transverse processes of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, and the wings of the sacrum. Let us now go to a very small USDA plant, where we join Mr. Jeff Nichols, as he ensures the cow is ambulatory and shows no signs of central nervous system disorders. The USDA considers all cattle to be 30 months of age or over, unless it is demonstrated by documentation or dentition that the cattle are younger than 30 months of age. Documentation, rather than dentition, is the preferred means of determining the age of animals. In the absence of documentation, dentition can be useful in making general determinations about age. For more on dentition, please visit the link below. Today, Mr. Nichols will be following procedures for cattle 30 months of age or over. Now, we're moving the tail. As stated earlier, the vertebrae of the tail is not considered an SRM. Here's your small intestines. This is the distalillium, which is considered a high-risk material. On a small plant, we don't see any of this for animals, so it doesn't really affect us. In effective October 7, 2005, the USDA allows the small intestine, excluding the distalillium, in a meat food product or for edible rendering. As Mr. Nichols has stated, he handles all intestines as inedible. For more information regarding the use of the small intestine, excluding the distalillium, please see FSIS notice 58-05. Now, because this animal is over 30 months, I'll be removing the spinal cord, which is an SRM. Here's the stamp that's saying that the SRMs must be removed. We removed the spinal cord, but the whole backbone from here where the tail was cut off, right down through to the end of the neck. All these feather bones on the back, and this also affects custom plants that are doing animals over 30 months. They must remove all this on animals that are over 30 months and keep it separate as a high-risk material. Right now, I'm taking out the tongue. We no longer wash the heads because the material from the brainstem could contaminate the meat. So the cheek meat is no longer saved unless you have the proper facilities to seal the head so no brain fluid can possibly go on here. The cerebral spinal fluid references brain fluid by Mr. Nichols is not an SRM. However, cerebral spinal fluid may contain readily identifiable pieces of brain that would contaminate the surface of the head. Now, these are the tonsils right here. They are inedible. The head contains five SRMs, skull, brain, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, and tonsils. Very carefully, we rinse just the tongue so we don't get any brain fluid on any of it. And then, when the tongue is cut off, you have to look for the last dots on the tongue and you have to cut it off just before the last dot because there's tonsils inside the tongue which are inedible. So about an inch of that tongue is considered inedible and has to be discarded. Plant sanitation requirements will vary depending on the plant's processing. In general, any equipment that is used to cut through SRMs must be cleaned and sanitized before being used on carcasses or parts from cattle less than 30 months. As a note, all SRMs may be completely removed from the cattle at the time of slaughter. However, this practice is generally reserved for cattle being used for ground meat only. Our rendering company takes all of our inedible material including SRMs, so we don't have to keep them separate. We just put them in a barrel that's inedible and they haul them away from our Phillips facility daily. Since much of the inedible material that leaves your facility ends up in animal food or feed, we recommend you stay informed on proposed amendments to 21 CFR 589 substances prohibited from use in animal food or feed. A link to the most recent proposal is listed below. After the carcass is aged in the cooler, it is removed for processing according to customer specifications. We now revisit the plant and join Mr. Lowell Carson as he takes us through the process. We're going to remove this whole spinal column all the way down through. The spinal cord has been removed on the kill floor before it went into the cooler. We're going to move all the way down into the atlas joint today. We're going to remove this all the way down on the boning table. What we had here was the hind quarter where the SRMs and everything was all connected in one. The SRMs to the spinal cord has been removed from the round of the animal. Now the only thing we have to do is remove it from the loin. The round is now SRM free. The tail section and spinal column has been removed from that now. Now that I removed the kidney fat, you can see the tenderloin here. It runs along the spinal column. We're removing that now. The tenderloin has been removed. Next I'm going to remove the hip from the loin. There's a loin here. I can take a saw, remove the spinal column just like that, leave these inner bones in. Now I'm going to remove the SRM material from the short loin. Now the SRM material has been removed. The hip bone has been removed. The SRMs here in the hip area is the four quarter of beef. We're going to remove the spinal column out of here on the way down to the neck area here while it's hanging today. Then I'm going to put the neck area on to the table afterwards and remove the spinal column out of the neck area up to the atlas joint. The SRM has been removed from the plate in the rib area. Next I'll break it down between the fifth and sixth to separate my rib from my plate. I'm going to remove the rest of the remaining SRMs from here down on my table. It's a really big one. The SRM has been all removed from the rib area. The rib bones can stay inside as long as the column has been removed. You leave the ribs in there. Next we'll remove the stamps that all the SRMs from this particular piece of meat has been removed. What we're going to do is remove all the stamps that says SRMs must be removed. This piece now is SRM free. Then we've got to remove the remaining feather bones in the spinal column right down to the atlas joint. The vertebral column excluding the vertebrae of the tail, the transverse processes of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, and the wings of the sacrum along with the dorsal root ganglia will often be removed in a plant's processing room. What you just witnessed was one firm's method of removing the SRMs. Your method may vary based on equipment, customer specifications, and style. We hope this video will be a useful training tool for all your current and future employees. Thank you.