Title 21 — Food and DrugsRelease 119-73not60

§642 Recordkeeping Requirements

Title 21 › Chapter 12— MEAT INSPECTION › Subchapter II— MEAT PROCESSORS AND RELATED INDUSTRIES › § 642

Last updated Apr 5, 2026|Official source

Summary

Keep full, accurate records that show all your business transactions. The rule applies to three groups: businesses that slaughter or prepare meat for people or animals; those who buy, sell, transport, store, or import carcasses or meat parts; and renderers or traders who handle animals that died other than by slaughter. An authorized representative of the Secretary may, with notice and at reasonable times, visit your place of business, inspect facilities, inventory, and records, copy records, and take reasonable samples if they pay fair market value. You must keep the records for the time the Secretary’s rules require.

Full Legal Text

Title 21, §642

Food and Drugs — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The following classes of persons, firms, and corporations shall keep such records as will fully and correctly disclose all transactions involved in their businesses; and all persons, firms, and corporations subject to such requirements shall, at all reasonable times upon notice by a duly authorized representative of the Secretary, afford such representative access to their places of business and opportunity to examine the facilities, inventory, and records thereof, to copy all such records, and to take reasonable samples of their inventory upon payment of the fair market value therefor—

(1)Any persons, firms, or corporations that engage, for commerce, in the business of slaughtering any cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules, or other equines, or preparing, freezing, packaging, or labeling any carcasses, or parts or products of carcasses, of any such animals, for use as human food or animal food;

(2)Any persons, firms, or corporations that engage in the business of buying or selling (as meat brokers, wholesalers or otherwise), or transporting in commerce, or storing in or for commerce, or importing, any carcasses, or parts or products of carcasses, of any such animals;

(3)Any persons, firms, or corporations that engage in business, in or for commerce, as renderers, or engage in the business of buying, selling, or transporting, in commerce, or importing, any dead, dying, disabled, or diseased cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules, or other equines, or parts of the carcasses of any such animals that died otherwise than by slaughter.

(b)Any record required to be maintained by this section shall be maintained for such period of time as the Secretary may by regulations prescribe.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

21 U.S.C. § 642

Title 21 — Food and Drugs

Last Updated

Apr 5, 2026

Release point: 119-73not60