Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) notice 57-12 outlines the young chicken classes that are included in FSIS’s carcass-based Salmonella and Campylobacter verification testing program. The FSIS notice states that some young chicken slaughter establishments may have been inadvertently excluded from sampling because Inspection Program Personnel (IPP) or establishment representatives may have misunderstood which young chicken product classes were subject to sampling.
Instructions to IPP provided in the Young Chicken Baseline Survey of 2007-2008 could have been interpreted to apply only to broilers. However, all types of young chickens are to be sampled in FSIS’s carcass-based Salmonella and Campylobacter verification testing program. The FSIS notice said that carcasses of “Rock Cornish game hens” (also called “Cornish game hen”, or “poussin”), “broilers,” “fryers,” and “roasting chickens” (also called “roasters”), as defined in 9 CFR 381.170(a), are in the “Young Chicken” product class and are to be sampled. Also, in order to ensure consistency in the FSIS sampling frame, IPP are to perform verification testing on these eligible young chicken products when they are available at a poultry slaughter establishment and when scheduled through the Public Health Information System (PHIS). FSIS added that other chicken classes, capon, hen, fowl, baking chicken or stewing chicken, and cock or rooster, are not subject to FSIS Salmonella and Campylobacter verification testing. FSIS’ notice 57-12 can viewed here.
