FSIS Sets New Poultry Rules to Prevent Salmonella, Campylobacter

WASHINGTONUSDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced new steps to protect consumers from Salmonella and Campylobacter by improving the food-safety plans required for companies that produce poultry products.

Companies producing raw ground chicken and turkey and similar products will be required to reassess their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans. The HACCP reassessment must be conducted in the next 90 days and account for several Salmonella outbreaks that were associated with those types of products.

HACCP reassessments improve a company's ability to identify hazards and better prevent foodborne illness," said USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen. "Incorporating information obtained from Salmonella outbreaks will enhance food-safety efforts, helping to avoid future outbreaks and ensure a safer food supply for consumers."

Under the new rules, FSIS will expand the Salmonella verification sampling program to include other raw comminuted poultry products, in addition to ground product; increase the sample size for laboratory analysis from 25 grams to 325 grams to provide consistency as the agency moves toward analyzing samples for Salmonella and Campylobacter; and conduct sampling to determine the prevalence of Salmonella in not-ready-to-eat comminuted poultry products and use the results to develop new performance standards for those products.

The new rules, posted in the Federal Register on Dec. 5, are the latest significant public health measures FSIS has put in place during the Obama Administration to safeguard the food supply, prevent foodborne illness, and improve consumers' knowledge about the food they eat. These initiatives support the three core principles developed by the President's Food Safety Working Groupprioritizing prevention; strengthening surveillance and enforcement; and improving response and recovery.