Food Safety
FSIS Takes Action Against Salmonella: How Hygiena Can Help
The United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) finalized the determination of a new regulation that declares Salmonella as an adulterant at 1 CFU/g in the raw chicken components intended for the use of raw breaded stuffed chicken products. This ruling was implemented to reduce the risk of Salmonella illnesses linked to poultry products.
Raw breaded stuffed chicken products are a particularly vulnerable poultry product, as the chicken is not fully cooked, but the product appears fully cooked by the pre-browned breaded outer coating. The regulation by FSIS requires facilities to test the product for Salmonella at 1 CFU/g and implement measures to prevent further contamination while determining diversion decisions for products that test ≥1 CFU/g. If Salmonella levels are above the defined threshold in raw chicken breasts for intended use in the raw breaded stuffed chicken product, it would be considered adulterated and unfit for use in creating that product.
This regulation has been met with mixed reactions with concerns about the potential cost of implementing these measures and their impact on the availability and affordability of raw breaded stuffed chicken products.
Hygiena offers a solution to assist the poultry industry in complying with this new regulation. Our BAX® System SalQuant® technology is a rapid, accurate, easy-to-use testing platform that can enumerate Salmonella in chicken breasts intended for use in raw breaded stuffed chicken products. Additionally, SalQuant can be used to enumerate Salmonella in raw ingredients prior to product formulation, reducing the amount of diverted final product. By using SalQuant, poultry producers can quickly identify and remove these highly contaminated products before they reach consumers, reducing the risk of Salmonella infections.
Overall, the regulation by the FSIS to classify Salmonella as an adulterant in raw chicken breast for intended use in raw breaded stuffed chicken products is an effort towards protecting public health, ultimately reducing consumer risk. Poultry producers can comply with this proposed regulation by implementing regular testing with solutions for Salmonella enumeration and providing consumers with safe and wholesome chicken products.
Check out our recent blog post with poultry food safety resources and solutions – SalQuant® and SalLimits™, QuantOnline™, MicroSnap®, SureTrend® Cloud for biomapping and trend reporting, including all the data resources that have been created from over 100,000 data points across our applications and R&D teams, industry partners, and academic collaborators.
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