PPoultry producers will be required to reduce Salmonella bacteria in certain chicken products to very low levels to help prevent food poisoning under a final rule issued Friday by U.S. agriculture officials.
When the regulation takes effect in 2025, salmonella will be considered an adulterant (a contaminant that can cause foodborne illness) when detected above certain levels in frozen breaded and stuffed raw chicken products. That would include things like frozen chicken cordon bleu and chicken kyiv dishes that appear to be fully cooked but only receive a heat treatment to set the dough or coating.
It’s the first time the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared salmonella an adulterant in raw poultry, in the same way that certain E. coli bacteria are considered contaminants that should be kept out of ground meat. raw food sold in grocery stores, Sandra Eskin said. the USDA undersecretary for food safety.
The new rule also means that if a product exceeds the allowable level of salmonella, it cannot be sold and will be subject to recall, Eskin said.
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Salmonella poisoning accounts for more than 1.3 million infections and about 420 deaths each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Food is the source of most of these diseases.
Breaded and stuffed raw chicken products have been associated with at least 14 salmonella outbreaks and at least 200 illnesses since 1998, CDC statistics show. An outbreak of 2021 linked to the products caused at least three dozen illnesses in 11 states and sent 12 people to the hospital.
Despite label changes emphasizing that products should be cooked thoroughly, consumers continued to get sick, Eskin said.
“Sometimes salmonella is very virulent,” he said.
Addressing a limited category of poultry products lays the groundwork for a new framework Federal officials are now considering regulating salmonella more broadly, said Mike Taylor, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official in charge of food safety.
Among other things, the proposal calls for increased testing for salmonella on birds entering a processing plant, stricter monitoring during production and a focus on three types of salmonella that cause a third of all illnesses.
“There’s no question that we need to move down this path toward regulating salmonella as an adulterant,” Taylor said.
Poultry industry officials have long said the government already has tools to ensure product safety and that companies have invested in methods to reduce salmonella in raw chicken.
A representative of the National Chicken Council said officials had not seen the final rule. However, the trade group said in a statement that it is concerned that the regulation represents an abrupt change in policy and that it “has the potential to close processing plants, cost jobs and remove safe food and convenience products from shelves, without affecting the public health”. .”
The USDA took similar action with E. coli bacteria in 1994 after deadly outbreaks of food poisoning linked to ground beef and the number of related foodborne illnesses. has fallen by more than 50%.
Seattle food safety attorney Bill Marler, who represented clients in a deadly E. coli outbreak in fast-food hamburgers in 1993 and has pushed for broader changes in salmonella control, said the new regulation It’s a good first step.
“Establishing a standard will force the industry to adapt,” he said.