USDA Process Verified Program – Verification from Farm to Table

By Taylor Sermersheim

As an auditor for USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), I am one of a small group of highly-qualified individuals who audit companies that utilize our programs to back up their marketing claims and add value to their products by verifying their standards or requirements. One of these programs is the USDA Process Verified Program (PVP).

The PVP is a voluntary service where a company sets its own standard or requirements, then applies to the PVP to have them checked by AMS for compliance with those standards or requirements. Standards or requirements checked by our auditors vary by industry and product and may include those requested by a customer or consumer. AMS then uses desk and on-site audits to verify the PVP requirements are met. Today, I will walk you through the audit process.

If a beef packer wants AMS to verify a “never fed hormones” claim, our auditors review feeding records and identification, segregation, and traceability procedures through desk audits and on-site audits at ranches and processing facilities. Our audit follows the product through the supply chain to confirm non-hormone treated cattle and beef are properly labeled and segregated.

Under the PVP Program, the packer must select suppliers who can provide cattle that have never been administered hormones. The suppliers must have a review process in place to ensure any cattle purchased from them meet these requirements and they must maintain records of these reviews. The packer must also have a procedure in place to identify and trace the cattle and beef through all phases of product realization.

The PVP is distinct from the pre-market label review and approval process of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which by law must ensure that labels are truthful and not misleading. Labels can include animal-raising or environment-related claims for meat, poultry, or egg products, and in its recently updated guideline for these claims, FSIS indicated that it “strongly encourages” use of third-party certification programs, like the PVP, to substantiate them.

This Program allows me to work with all facets of agriculture. If you need help finding solutions to your marketing challenges, I encourage you to reach out to us. We will help you find an auditing solution that provides transparency and quality to your customers.