IPPE: US poultry sector examines contamination challenges

Dr Richard Raymond, former undersecretary for food safety for the US Department of Agriculture, speaking during a session entitled ‘New Approaches to Ground Poultry Pathogen Reduction’​, said the sector had a unique challenge to reduce levels of contamination.

While there has been a reduction in whole bird carcase contamination, mechanically separated meat remained a problem with high levels of pathogens. He also called for the poultry slaughter system to be modernised. He praised the fact that, since 1998, good progress had been made following implementation of HACCP processes, but more could still be done.

Presenting a retail perspective, Christine Summers, director of global food safety and quality for Costco Wholesale, said it was always better to try to prevent problems than deal with them afterwards. She said this was a key part of Costco’s philosophy on food safety.

Summers remarked: "We inspect what you expect. We do quality checks to have a uniformity ratio."​ She said her company’s standards were higher than government regulation, and included microbial testing of incoming raw material, such as ground poultry, as well as other ingredients like spices, extracts and seasonings for meat.

In a further panel session, Dr David Goldman, chief medical officer with USDA-FSIS-OPHS, explained how FSIS is making an effort to reduce pathogens through the Healthy People 2020 program. The scheme aims to slash salmonellosis by 25% across the US, with a further 33% target on campylobacter by 2020.

According to Dr Robert Tauxe, from the Centres for Disease Control, there are around 120 foodborne outbreaks, attributed to salmonella, reported each year in the US.