06.12.2012

USDA Announces New Prevention-based Efforts to Improve Safety of Poultry Products and Protect Consumers.
Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced new steps to protect consumers 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, which establishments must conduct in the next 90 days, must account for several Salmonella outbreaks that were associated with those types of products.
In this notice, FSIS also announced that it 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.
This announcements are the latest significant public health measures FSIS has put in place during President Barack Obama’s 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 Group: prioritizing prevention; strengthening surveillance and enforcement; and improving response and recovery. 
After two years of enforcing the new standards, FSIS estimates that approximately 5,000 illnesses will be prevented each year under the new Campylobacter standards, and approximately 20,000 illnesses will be prevented under the revised Salmonella standards each year.