Final corrective actions cleared Namibia to export its first raw beef to U.S.

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service sent it’s auditors to Namibia this past September to conduct a foreign equivalency audit for the country’s raw beef exports to the United States. And on one level, it was a fairly simple assignment.

But, it also ended up being historic because it was the audit that last month actually resulted in the first shipment of 25 tons of chilled Namibian beef to Philadelphia. Namibia is the first African nation to export beef to the United States.

Subjected to the historic audit were Namibia’s Directorate of Veterinary Services or DVS, the “central competent authority,” Namibia’s Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL), and the beef slaughter and processing establishment Meatco Windhoek, which made the beef shipment to Philadelphia. All located in Namibia’s capital of Windhoek.