USDA issues new poultry pathogen reduction standards

USDA has issued new compliance guidelines to reduce the levels of salmonella and campylobacter in chicken.

The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published the new standards, an update to guidelines published in 2008, last week. 

The new guidelines take some pretty dramatic steps, however:  the allowable level of contamination for salmonella in young chickens, or broilers, currently stands at 20% or no more than 12 samples out of 51.  After the 60-day comment period when the new standard goes into effect, it will be 7.5% or no more than five positive sample tests out of 51.  Even more notable, the new guidelines address the problem of campylobacter contamination in poultry.

Poultry producers Foster Farms and Perdue declined to comment on the guidelines and smaller, organic poultry producers in California did not return calls.

Current industry practices are pretty much in accord with the new guidelines already, according to the National Chicken Council. But it should be noted that the suggestion that human illness is directly linked to the microbiological profile of raw chicken is not very well supported by the data. The prevalence of human disease from salmonella has been going up in recent years whereas the presence of salmonella on raw chickens has been going down.

Over the past several years, while the rates of salmonella infection have increased, the figures for infection as a result of eating contaminated poultry have dropped.

"The major outbreaks have been in produce such as peanuts and peppers but, in fact, salmonella is found in any warm blooded animal and any place where food is in contact with animals has such a potential," Lobb said.