The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) this week announced the finalization of new federal standards to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter in ground chicken and turkey products, as well as in raw chicken breasts, legs, and wings. FSIS has also updated its microbial testing schedule at poultry facilities and will soon begin posting more information online about individual companies’ food safety performance.
For chicken parts, ground chicken, and ground turkey, FSIS is finalizing a pathogen reduction performance standard designed to achieve at least a 30 percent reduction in illnesses from Salmonella. For chicken parts and ground chicken, FSIS is finalizing a pathogen reduction performance standard designed to achieve at least a 32 percent reduction in illnesses from Campylobacter. Because FSIS has found the prevalence for Campylobacter in ground turkey to be already low, the reduction for this product is estimated to be 19 percent.
“Poultry parts like breasts, wings and others represent 80 percent of the chicken available for Americans to purchase. By creating a standard for chicken parts, and by performing regulatory testing at a point closer to the final product, FSIS can greatly reduce consumer exposure to Salmonella and Campylobacter,” USDA said in a news release. Once establishments have completed a full set of testing under the new standards, the agency will also begin posting online which facilities pass, meet or fail the new standards.
Since 2013, Dr. Ashley Peterson, NCC’s s senior vice president of science and technology, has been leading the “second processing working group” and NCC member companies have been collectively exploring all options to reduce contamination on chicken parts in order to provide the safest product possible to its consumers, including strengthening sanitation programs, temperature controls, and using various interventions in both first and second processing.
“This is something the industry has been proactively and non-competitively working to address, so when the performance standards for chicken parts are implemented by FSIS, we will be meeting or exceeding the standards, as we currently do for whole carcasses,” Dr. Peterson said. “NCC members companys will continue to rely upon the best science, microbiology, and technology available to reduce foodborne pathogens in order to meet and exceed standards set forth by the federal government. We look forward to reviewing this notice in its entirety.”
FSIS will evaluate comments for 60 days and announce final standards and an implementation date this spring. The Federal Register notice is available here.
