Cooperative Interstate Shipment: State Plants That Ship Nationally

State-inspected meat cannot cross a state line. Federally inspected meat can. CIS lets a small state plant have it both ways: keep its state inspectors, add federal oversight and a federal number, and ship anywhere. A CIS selected establishment is a state-inspected plant whose product is legally federal.

Part 332 sets the terms. Under 332.4, only a state that already runs a cooperative state meat inspection program may ask to join; it submits a written request identifying candidate plants, shows it can provide the inspection, and agrees to hand FSIS its laboratory results and to alert the FSIS coordinator to any potential food safety problem. If FSIS agrees, the Administrator and the state sign a cooperative agreement, FSIS appoints a Selected Establishment Coordinator, and the two select the plants.

Under 332.5, a plant is selected only if it requested selection, meets the employee test in 332.3(a), is not ineligible under 332.3(c), and complies with both the state program and the federal requirements. Inside a CIS plant the standard is not at least equal to; it is the same as federal, because the product will carry the federal mark.

Congress wrote the program for small plants. 9 CFR 332.3(a) admits an establishment operating under a cooperative state meat inspection program if it employs on average no more than 25 employees. The rule counts all individuals, supervisory and non-supervisory, full-time, part-time, or temporary, whose duties involve handling the meat or meat food products. A plant may run above 25 at peak season and still qualify on the average, but the total number of employees can never exceed 35 at any given time. In the 2011 preamble FSIS gave the example of a mechanic at an attached gas station, who would not be counted, and confirmed that part-time and temporary workers count as full-time employees.

Under 332.3(c), a plant is ineligible if it averages more than 25 employees; if it is or was an official (federally inspected) establishment that reorganized after June 18, 2008 to get under the cap; if it sits in a state without a cooperative meat inspection program; if it is in violation of applicable regulations; or if its state's CIS agreement has been terminated. The program cannot be used by a federal plant to switch to state inspection and keep shipping; it is a one-way door for small state plants.

9 CFR 332.5 requires that the official number assigned to every selected establishment contain a suffix, e.g., SE, that identifies the establishment as a selected establishment and that identifies the State, e.g., SETX, for selected establishment Texas. Under 332.6, product prepared in a selected establishment and inspected and passed by designated state personnel must bear an official federal mark, stamp, tag, or label of inspection. So a CIS package shows the same round USDA legend as any federal plant's product, with an establishment number that ends in SE plus the two-letter state code.

If you are buying across a state line and the seller's processor is state-inspected, the number must carry the SE suffix or the sale is not legal. The general rules for establishment numbers are in how to read a USDA establishment number, and the meaning of every mark is compared in USDA vs state vs custom-exempt.

The ten states other than Georgia all appear on the National Agricultural Law Center's April 2021 CIS map and on the FSIS list the Congressional Research Service cited in October 2024 (10 states). Only a state with its own Meat and Poultry Inspection program can join, so the pool of candidates is the other 19 MPI states; the 20 states without a program cannot participate at all. Nineteen MPI states, including Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, and North Carolina, have not joined, and a state-inspected plant there is intrastate only. Which states are which is on the states index and in state meat inspection programs.

A farm that wants to sell steaks to customers in other states needs a processor whose product can cross the line. The choices are a federal plant, a Talmadge-Aiken plant, or a CIS plant. In much of the country the nearest small plant that does cut-and-wrap for direct marketers is a state plant, and the nearest federal plant is a large one that does not take small lots, or a long haul away. CIS gives the state plant the federal number the farm needs.

USDA's Georgia announcement framed it the same way: for nearly six decades, Georgia's state-inspected meat processors could only sell within the state; eligible small processors can now join CIS to ship across all 50 states under the USDA mark of inspection while maintaining the same food safety standards. The Georgia release also restated the program mechanics, including the 60 percent FSIS reimbursement to the state.

For a buyer, the practical test is simple: if the farm ships to you from another state, ask for the establishment number and expect either a federal number or one with an SE suffix. Producers on our national shipping list meet that test. A farm inside a CIS state that has not moved its processing to a selected plant remains intrastate only, no matter what the state's press release says. Related reading: how to find a USDA processor and how to find a local farm that sells meat.

FSIS publishes the list. Its Cooperative Interstate Shipment (CIS) Establishments page lists the state-inspected establishments currently participating, by state, with establishment number, name, address, telephone, and the date each entered the program. Selected establishments also appear in the FSIS Meat, Poultry and Egg Product Inspection Directory, which is the source for our processor registry and finder. Each participating state's agency maintains its own list as well, linked from the state page.

When you contact a CIS plant as a farm, ask whether it is currently a selected establishment (selection can be withdrawn by the FSIS coordinator for noncompliance), whether it has capacity for your species and volume, and what its lead time is. When you contact one as a buyer, the number on the package is the answer.

The idea of letting state-inspected meat cross state lines had been argued since the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 confined state programs to intrastate commerce. Congress acted in section 11015 of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, enacted June 18, 2008, which amended the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 683) and the Poultry Products Inspection Act to create a cooperative program under which state-inspected establishments with 25 or fewer employees could be selected to ship in interstate commerce.

FSIS published a proposed rule in 2009 and the final rule, Cooperative Inspection Programs: Interstate Shipment of Meat and Poultry Products, on May 2, 2011 at 76 FR 24714, effective July 1, 2011. The rule added 9 CFR 321.3, Part 332, 381.187, and Part 381 subpart Z, set the employee-counting method, created the Selected Establishment Coordinator, and fixed the state reimbursement at not less than 60 percent. USDA's 2026 Georgia release states the program launched in 2012, when the first state agreements were signed.

Growth was slow. By the National Agricultural Law Center's April 2021 count, ten states had joined: Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The Congressional Research Service still counted ten in October 2024. Georgia became the eleventh on July 27, 2026. Thirty states have MPI programs and eleven have CIS, so most state-inspected plants in the country still cannot ship across the line in 2026. The FSIS directive governing the program is FSIS Directive 5740.1, Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program.