23.01.2015

New standards aimed at reducing the number of cases of foodborne illness. The proposed standards by the Agriculture Department apply to the most popular poultry products - chicken breasts, legs and wings, and ground chicken and turkey. They are voluntary but designed to pressure companies to lower rates of salmonella and campylobacter. Among the measures companies could take to reduce the rates of those pathogens: better screening of flocks and better sanitation.
The proposal would ask poultry producers to reduce the rates of salmonella in raw chicken parts from around 24 percent now to less than 16 percent, and campylobacter rates in raw chicken parts from 22 percent to 8 percent. Rates also would be reduced in ground chicken and turkey.
The USDA will post facility ratings online to increase transparency and put more pressure on poultry processors. The legal limit for Salmonella contamination on chicken parts will be set at 15%. For ground chicken, the maximum acceptable percent positive will be 25% for Salmonella and 1.9% for Campylobacter. The old standards for chicken parts were 44.6% in ground chicken. USDA estimates that almost 2/3 of facilities producing chicken parts and 62% of facilities producing ground chicken will not achieve these standards at first. An initial inspection will be followed up with more sampling to see if the facilities are making and using changes to food safety systems. FSIS is also going to being routine sampling of raw chicken parts and sampling imported poultry products. These results will also be posted online.
The Agriculture Department says the standards could eventually reduce salmonella and campylobacter illnesses linked to raw poultry by about a quarter, or 50,000 illnesses a year.