Raw Frozen Meat Storage

Hello,

I work in the Quality department for a live lobster and crab processor. We are under FDA regulation. We do a lot of retail products, we provide unfrozen lobster to our own restaurants, and we also have a bit of online ordering business (lobster roll kits, frozen lobster tails, live lobster) that ship directly to individual customers through UPS.

This post is in regards to the online ordering business. Our sales team wants to push a "surf and turf" meal kit, so the case might contain a frozen raw tenderloin and a frozen raw lobster tail. We bring the raw tenderloin in, sealed vacuum packed, and it sits in our freezer awaiting orders. We do nothing else with it except receive, store, and pack in a box for shipment. Since we are FDA regulated, we are struggling a bit with what might be needed for this type of operation for USDA. I am assuming we need a HACCP plan for the meat, would our site have to also go through a USDA inspection? Is there anything else we might need that my FDA brain isn't aware of? I have been digging on the USDA website and most of it is geared towards slaughter and processors, whereas we would function mostly as simply a warehouse(?)

Any information would be incredibly appreciated. Thank you!

In my experience, yes you would fall under USDA inspection on the days you are packing it in a box for shipment.  Temperature is going to be the key here for you and the main factor they will look for, so you will need to figure out what temperature to keep it below in receiving, storing and then packing in order to prove you are not adding any additional risk.  I am assuming you will not be opening anything, so your risk will actually be very low.  Due to this, you are going to have to reach out to them and explain what you are doing,  They would most likely come to visit to see the operation and then make a determination from there.  It all depends I would guess on what your process will be for packing the surf and turf boxes.