Meat, seafood & dairy

The FSIS side: meat, poultry and catfish

Commercial meat and poultry can only come from an establishment in a country FSIS has found to run an equivalent inspection system, and only from a plant on that country's eligible establishment list. Every lot travels with a foreign inspection certificate issued by the exporting country's inspection authority, and that certificate has to agree with the entry on establishment number, product description and net weight. We transmit the FSIS data set with the entry, PHIS returns the reinspection assignment, and the product moves to an official import inspection establishment before anyone can sell it.

CBP releasing the container is not the end of the story. The product stays under FSIS control until reinspection is finished, and a lot that fails is refused: exported, destroyed, or converted to animal food. Siluriformes fish, which covers catfish, basa, swai and pangasius, sits with FSIS rather than FDA. Importers who still file it as ordinary FDA seafood get a rejected message set and lose a day finding out why.

Seafood: HACCP, SIMP and the orders nobody priced in

Seafood importers need a written HACCP plan covering the species and the hazards involved, and records the FDA can ask to see at any point. Species on the Seafood Import Monitoring Program list need an International Fisheries Trade Permit and harvest, landing and chain of custody data transmitted with the entry. That data is not a formality. A missing harvest date or vessel identifier rejects the line, and nobody notices until the vessel discharges.

The bigger number is usually the trade remedy. Frozen warmwater shrimp has been under antidumping orders for two decades and has picked up further countries and countervailing duty orders since 2024. Crawfish tail meat from China carries its own long running order. Cash deposit rates change with every administrative review and with each scope or circumvention ruling, and the rate that binds is the one in force on the date of entry, not the one your supplier quoted last season. We check the case, the producer and exporter combination and the current rate per line, and we tell you the deposit before you commit to the container.

Dairy, and the quota you may not hold

Most cheese, butter and milk protein enters under tariff rate quotas administered by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Quota volume is allocated by licence, and licences are issued for specific importers and specific origins. Without one your goods are not stopped, they are simply dutiable at the over quota rate, which is high enough to turn a profitable container into a loss. We check quota and licence coverage before the goods ship rather than after they land. Honey, which shares Chapter 04 with dairy, carries its own antidumping orders on several origins.

What actually goes wrong

• The health certificate names a consignee who is not the importer of record, so FSIS cannot match it to the entry.
• The establishment number printed on the carton does not match the number on the certificate.
• SIMP data is transmitted against the wrong harvest event, and the line rejects silently.
• The FSVP importer field is blank, or carries a DUNS number FDA cannot resolve.
• All of the above gets sorted out while the reefer runs on the terminal's power and the free time expires.

Tariff exposure in 2026

Column one duty on most protein is low, and on some lines free. That is not where the money is. The exposure sits in three places: trade remedy cases, the over quota rates on dairy, and the emergency authority tariff programmes layered on since 2025. Those programmes have been amended more than once and parts of them have been litigated, so we do not quote a rate from memory. We price the entry against Chapter 99 as it reads on the day the goods arrive, and we tell you when it has moved since your last shipment.

What we need from you

1. A signed customs power of attorney, and a bond sized to the duty, taxes and deposits you actually expect.
2. Commercial invoice and packing list showing species and scientific name where relevant, cut or form, net weight per carton, lot codes and production dates.
3. The foreign inspection certificate for FSIS product, or the FDA registration number of the manufacturing facility for FDA product.
4. Your FSVP importer name, address and DUNS number. See FDA Prior Notice for how this is transmitted.
5. For SIMP species, the harvest and landing detail and your International Fisheries Trade Permit number.
6. Any antidumping or countervailing case numbers you already know about, with the producer and exporter named.