February 11, 2016
US finalises new food safety measures to reduce salmonella, campylobacter in poultry
The US has finalised the new federal standards to reduce salmonella and campylobacter in ground chicken and turkey products, as well as in raw chicken breasts, legs and wings, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said.
The FSIS estimates that the implementation of the tougher standards would lead to an average of 50,000 prevented illnesses annually.
The FSIS has also updated its microbial testing schedule at poultry facilities and said it would soon begin posting more information online about individual companies' food-safety performance.
"Over the past seven years, USDA has put in place tighter and more strategic food safety measures than ever before for meat and poultry products. We have made strides in modernising every aspect of food safety inspection, from company record keeping, to labeling requirements, to the way we perform testing in our labs," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The FSIS implemented performance standards for whole chickens in 1996 but found that salmonella levels increase as chicken is further processed into parts, such as breasts and wings. By creating a standard for chicken parts, and by performing regulatory testing at a point closer to the final product, FSIS said it can greatly reduce consumer exposure to salmonella and campylobacter.
For chicken parts, ground chicken and ground turkey, FSIS is finalising pathogen-reduction performance standards designed to achieve at least a 30% reduction in illnesses from salmonella. and at least a 32% reduction in illnesses from campylobacter.
The standards were proposed early last year. Once establishments have completed a full set of testing under the new standards, the FSIS will also begin posting online which facilities pass, meet or fail the new standards.
An estimated 1.2 million foodborne illnesses are thought to be caused every year in the US by salmonella, with around one-third, or 360,000, of those illnesses attributed to FSIS-regulated products.
