The USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) will grant poultry processors more time to comply with the agency’s new salmonella and campylobacter standards, giving fowl farmers until July 1 to implement the stricter guidelines.
USDA tightened its pathogen-reduction targets for chicken and turkey processors in February, with a goal of reducing illnesses caused by salmonella by 30 percent and preventing 50,000 illnesses a year. Salmonella and campylobacter outbreaks are among the most common causes of human foodborne illness in the United States.
The FSIS expects more than half of chicken and turkey operations will fail, which isn’t surprising, as poultry products are five to 10 times more susceptible to salmonella contamination than ground beef or pork chops, reports Food Safety News.
The new standards include bird vaccinations, sanitary transportation, additional cleaning procedures and strengthened employee training.
Inspectors will see who makes the cut starting in July, when they will examine, on average, four to five samples per month from larger poultry plants. Results will be posted on the FSIS website.
The new standards apply to ground chicken and ground turkey products and to raw chicken breasts, legs and wings. The USDA implemented pathogen reduction standards for whole chickens in 1996. But salmonella levels increase during processing, it said, and poultry parts, such as breasts and wings, constitute 80 percent of the chicken sold in stores.