Fewer cases of salmonella found in US chicken plants

In the Quarterly Progress Report on Salmonella and Campylobacter Testing of Selected Raw Meat and Poultry Products: Preliminary Results for the period between July and September 2014, it was found that, in the 3,985 samples collected by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, the incidences of salmonella had lowered.

Young chicken plants testing positive for salmonella decreased from 4.5% to 3.5%, with ground chicken plants testing positive reducing from 25% to zero, although the number of plants tested was reduced from eight to one. Campylobacter was found in 6.9% of young chicken plants.

All turkey plants tested were found to be negative for salmonella, while 1.2% tested positive for campylobacter.

Positive identification of salmonella in ground beef plants increased from 1.0% to 1.6%, while of the 2,968 samples collected for the raw ground beef sampling program MT43, which has replaced the MT43S sampling program, 3.2% tested positive for salmonella.