U. S. Food and Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
1995


Note: The National Shellfish Sanitation Program Model Ordinance, 1999 revision is available in PDF format.

National Shellfish Sanitation Program
Manual of Operation

The National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP) is a Federal, State, Industry voluntary cooperative program that relies on regulatory controls by State Shellfish Authority (SSA) to ensure safe molluscan shellfish.

These three parties combine to form a tripartite cooperative program that has accepted responsibilities for the following procedures:

  1. Each participating State adopts adequate laws and regulations for sanitary control of the molluscan shellfish industry, classification of shellfish growing areas, to control harvesting from restricted areas, certify shellfish plants, conducts laboratory investigations, and control measures to insure molluscan shellfish are harvested and processed under sanitary conditions.

  2. The FDA conducts an annual review of each State Shellfish Control Program to determine the degree of conformity with the NSSP.

  3. The shellfish industry cooperates by obtaining shellfish from safe sources, provides plants that meet sanitary standards, maintain sanitary operating conditions, place tag or label with the proper certificate number on each package and keep records that shows origin and disposition of shellfish.

The two volume National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP), Manual of Operations is published by the Food and Drug Administration. This Manual of Operations is a guide for establishing State Shellfish laws and regulations that include: general administrative procedures, laboratory procedures, and guidelines for growing area survey and classification, controlled relaying, patrol of shellfish harvesting areas and control of harvesting, and aquaculture.

Updates to this Manual of Operations are accomplished with the cooperation of the State Shellfish Authority, the shellfish industry and the federal regulatory agencies (Food and Drug Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Environmental Protection Agency) at the annual Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference.

This manual is also used by the FDA as the basis for certifying foreign shellfish sanitation programs. International countries seeking to establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to export molluscan bivalves to the United States will ensure their government has laws or regulations equivalent to those published in this Manual and have the necessary resources to exercise control over the export shellfish industry.

For more information write to:

Office of Seafood
Division of Programs and Enforcement Policy
200 C Street, SW (HFS-417)
Washington, DC 20204

The following files have been compressed using PKZIP v2.04g. Use Shift - Click to download.

Part I

Part II

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