FSIS Salmonella Initiative

FSIS is the public health agency in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) whose mission is to ensure that meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and properly labeled. As a public health agency, we continually review and optimize our policies and practices to best protect consumers from foodborne illness. Examples include past illness outbreaks caused by Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) in beef and Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat products that prompted the Agency to respond with regulations and policies that resulted in substantial decreases in human illnesses due to these pathogens. While FSIS has had a similar goal of reducing Salmonella infections linked to poultry products, we have not seen the same level of success with our current approach.

In October of 2021, USDA announced a re-evaluation of its strategy for controlling Salmonella in poultry. FSIS began a comprehensive look at its existing strategy and, in October 2022 released a regulatory framework for controlling Salmonella contamination in a way that will reduce illnesses. The framework was shaped by months of information-gathering and discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, researchers, and scientists. FSIS gathered scientific evidence relevant to the approaches presented in this framework. The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) was charged with providing guidance on what types of microbiological criteria FSIS might use to better prevent Salmonella infections associated with poultry products. FSIS completed a risk profile for pathogenic Salmonella subtypes in poultry and collaborated on quantitative risk assessments for Salmonella in chicken and turkey to address key risk management questions associated with this framework. FSIS also expanded its exploratory sampling program for young chicken carcasses to generate microbial data to help inform future policies. Updates on these and other efforts will be provided during this presentation.