The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a new policy to limit Salmonella contamination and illnesses linked with the consumption of raw poultry products in a move to protect consumers from foodborne diseases.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA has proposed a framework calling for establishing final product standards, such as banning chicken and turkey products containing any type of Salmonella at or above 10 colony-forming units (CFU) per g/ml and any detectable level of any type of harmful Salmonella from entering retail stores.

Salmonella is a pressing health concern in the US, causing over one million human infections annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Far too many consumers become sick from poultry contaminated with Salmonella, and this announcement marks a historic step forward to combat this threat,” says agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack.

“This proposed framework is a systematic approach to addressing Salmonella contamination at poultry slaughter and processing, which includes enforceable standards that will result in safer food for consumers and fewer illnesses.”

The leading source of the infections is food, with poultry among the dominant sources of foodborne illnesses caused by the bacteria. According to the FSIS, there are 125,000 chicken-associated and almost 43,000 turkey-associated foodborne illnesses caused by it annually.

“The proposed Salmonella framework is grounded in data and rigorous scientific evaluation, and it reflects feedback from extensive stakeholder engagement,” says Dr. Emilio Esteban, the USDA under secretary for food safety.

“We encourage all interested stakeholders to submit comments and relevant data on the proposal as we work to finalize data-driven, science-based regulatory policies to address Salmonella in poultry.”

The framework
Previous FSIS data has indicated a decrease in Salmonella contamination in poultry products, but associated illnesses do not show signs of slowing down.

The regulations would also mandate poultry units to establish a microbial monitoring program to prevent pathogen contamination throughout the slaughter system.

The proposal follows FSIS’ three-year initiative under the Biden-Harris administration to rework its plan for reducing Salmonella rates in poultry, controlling the spread of foodborne illnesses among consumers and preventing false and misleading label claims.

Past effort
FSIS published a final resolution earlier this year to declare the microorganism an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products contaminated with more than 1 CFU/g of Salmonella.

The agency also introduced a rule that only those FSIS-regulated products derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the US can use the “Product of USA” claim.

Since 2021, FSIS has initiated several activities to gather data and information for its new framework. These include roping in the National Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food to advise on the microbiological criteria the agency might use and analyzing the risk of sickening Salmonella subtypes.

It also hosted a public meeting and other closed discussions, launched a sampling program to gather microbial data on young chicken carcasses and refined its Salmonella testing program.

Stakeholders speak
The National Turkey Federation (NTF), a non-profit trade association that has contributed industry data to the FSIS’ risk assessment, highlights the need for science-backed standards in a statement.

“While NTF believes that FSIS already possesses the authority and regulatory tools necessary to drive improvements in food safety without implementing a final product standard for Salmonella in turkey products, we will diligently review and provide meaningful comments on the proposal.”

“NTF believes any standard should be science-based and should not impose unnecessary costs and product destruction for members of the US turkey industry.”

The federation says it aims to continue its dialogue with the authorities to create “comprehensive” strategies that can combat Salmonella throughout turkey production while representing the concerns of its members.