In March, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) released a compliance guideline to provide best practice recommendations to establishments that slaughter or further process Siluriformes fish (e.g. catfish) and fish products.  

The guidelines inform establishments of their regulatory responsibilities, including the development of written recall plans; compliance with Sanitation Performance Standards (SPS) and Sanitation SOP requirements; and compliance with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) requirements.  The guidelines will support compliance with the Final Rule, Mandatory Inspection of Fish of the Order Siluriformes and Products Derived From Such Fish, which was released in December 2015.
The discovery of violative levels of drugs, pesticides, dyes, metals, or other chemical residues in imported shipments of Siluriformes fish (e.g. catfish) require the importer to hold and test subsequent shipments from the same foreign establishment.   

In July 2016, the FSIS issued criteria to assist importers to determine if production lots from the same foreign establishment could be chemically independent from an adulterated lot. The FSIS criteria includes a decision tree to illustrate how the agency will gather information for determining chemical independence.

Source: USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service