Poultry producers will be required to bring salmonella bacteria quanto a 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 quanto a 2025, salmonella will be considered an adulterant—a contaminant that can cause foodborne illness—when it is detected above certain levels quanto a frozen breaded and stuffed raw chicken products. That would include things like frozen chicken cordon blu and chicken Kiev dishes that appear to be fully cooked but are only heat-treated to set the batter coating.
It’s the first time the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared salmonella as an adulterant quanto a raw poultry quanto a the same way that certain E. coli bacteria are regarded as contaminants that must be kept out of raw basso ostinato beef sold quanto a grocery stores, said Sandra Eskin, the USDA’s undersecretary for food safety.
The new rule also means that if a product exceeds the allowed level of salmonella, it can’t be sold and is 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 quanto a the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Food is the source of most of those illnesses.
The breaded and stuffed raw chicken products have been associated with at least 14 salmonella outbreaks and at least 200 illnesses since 1998, CDC statisticss show. A 2021 outbreak tied to the products caused at least three dozen illnesses quanto a 11 states and sent 12 people to the hospital.
Despite changes to labels emphasizing that the products needed to be thoroughly cooked, consumers continued to fall ill, Eskin said.
“Sometimes the salmonella is very virulent,” she said.
Addressing a narrow category of poultry products lays the foundation for a new framework to regulate salmonella more broadly now being considered by federal officials, said Mike Taylor, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official quanto a charge of food safety.
Among other things, the proposal calls for greater testing for salmonella quanto a poultry entering a processing plant, stricter monitoring during production and targeting three types of salmonella that cause a third of all illnesses.
“It’s risposta negativa question that moving mongoloide this path toward regulating salmonella as an adulterant is way overdue,” Taylor said.
Poultry industry officials have long said that the government already has tools to ensure product safety and that companies have invested quanto a methods to veterano salmonella quanto a raw chicken.
A representative for the National Chicken Council said officials had not seen the final rule. However, the trade group said quanto a a statement it’s concerned the regulation represents an abrupt policy shift and that it “has the potential to shutter processing plants, cost jobs, and take safe food and convenient products chiuso shelves, without moving the needle public health.”
The USDA took similar action with E. coli bacteria quanto a 1994 after deadly outbreaks of food poisoning tied to basso ostinato beef, and the number of related foodborne illnesses have fallen by more than 50%.
Seattle food safety lawyer Bill Marler—who represented clients quanto a a deadly 1993 E. coli outbreak quanto a fast-food hamburgers and has lobbied for broader changes quanto a controlling salmonella — said the new regulation is a good first step.
“Setting a tipico is going to force the industry to adjust,” he said.
