New 'DIRECT Act' Allows Interstate Internet Sales of State-Inspected Meat and Poultry for Household Delivery

If you’ve ever tried to order a specialty cut of meat or unique poultry product directly from a small farm or butcher shop in another state, you likely ran into a wall of federal regulations. That wall is about to get a serious crack, thanks to the Direct Interstate Retail Exemption for Certain Transactions Act of 2025, or the DIRECT Act. Essentially, this bill updates the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act to allow retail stores, restaurants, or similar establishments to sell meat and poultry products that have only been inspected at the state level, ship them across state lines via the internet, and deliver them directly to your front door.

Opening the Butcher Shop Door

Historically, if a product crossed state lines, it generally had to pass federal inspection—a huge hurdle for smaller operations that often rely on state inspection programs. This bill changes that by creating a specific exemption for e-commerce. The key is that the sale must be shipped directly to household consumers and only in normal retail quantities. Think of it this way: you can order a box of specialty sausages from a beloved shop in Iowa and have it shipped to your apartment in New York, provided that shop is operating under a state inspection program that meets the criteria of the existing law. This is a big win for market access, especially for small-scale producers and independent butchers who want to expand their customer base beyond their state borders.

What “Retail Quantities” Actually Means

The entire system hinges on the “normal retail quantities” clause. The bill doesn't define this quantity, but the intent is clear: this is for your weekly grocery shop, not for stocking a commercial kitchen or a major wholesale operation. This provision (found in Section 2, amending the Federal Meat Inspection Act, and Section 3, amending the Poultry Products Inspection Act) is designed to keep the focus on household consumers while preventing massive, unregulated commercial shipments from flooding the market. For the average person, this means more variety and potentially more direct-to-consumer options, cutting out some middlemen. For the small business owner, it means their online store just went national.

The Fine Print: Regulation and Modernization

While this is a boon for commerce, it does introduce a layer of complexity for oversight. State-inspected products are now entering the interstate market, meaning federal agencies will need to ensure that the various state inspection standards are adequate, even if the products don't carry the USDA seal. For consumers, it’s important to remember that these products are state-inspected, not federally inspected, though the existing law requires state programs to maintain standards “at least equal to” the federal standards.

Beyond the major policy shift, the DIRECT Act takes care of some necessary bureaucratic housekeeping. Both Section 2 and Section 3 include technical amendments to update the language in the decades-old inspection acts. For instance, the bill replaces the pronoun “he” with “the Secretary” wherever it appears, modernizing the text and removing outdated gendered language. It also corrects numerous internal cross-references within the acts, ensuring that when one section points to another, it actually points to the right place. It’s the kind of tedious but essential work that keeps federal law coherent, making the entire system run a little smoother.