The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday that a Salmonella outbreak linked to Foster Farms appears to be over, about 17 months after it began. Public health investigators said the Salmonella outbreak began on March 1, 2013 and ended July 11.
In early July, the company announced a limited recall of chicken produced at its three plants in central California. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has determined that “measures undertaken by the firm to prevent Salmonella contamination of raw chicken have been successful.”
Last year, the company said it began implementing a new $75 million food safety program to reduce Salmonella contamination throughout the company, from farm to slaughterhouse. “Foster Farms remains committed to continuing its progress and leading the industry in food safety,” the company told Reuters in a statement. “Foster Farms has implemented and continues to utilize multiple interventions to reduce Salmonella throughout its entire poultry production process,” the company said in a written statement on Thursday. “This strategy includes interventions at the breeder level, at hatcheries, at grow-out farms, and at the processing plant where the final product is packaged.”
