The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) has published its Annual Sampling Plan for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, outlining the agency’s strategy for directing sampling resources in the coming year, and describing changes from FY 2024.

Sampling priorities of note in FSIS’ plan for FY 2025 include:

  • Raw poultry sampling: FSIS will explore Salmonella quantification analysis of multiple poultry product types in support of its efforts to reduce salmonellosis cases associated with poultry consumption. FSIS will also explore which Salmonella serotypes and virulence factors pose the greatest public health risk, and will commence sampling of source material for raw, breaded and stuffed chicken products.
  • Raw beef sampling: FSIS improved the laboratory analysis for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) analysis in raw beef, allowing products to move more quickly as fewer lots will await adulterant confirmation by reducing the time to a confirmed negative result. FSIS will also leverage the existing National Residue Program to conduct testing on muscle tissue from culled dairy cow for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 (HPAI H5N1).
  • Allergen testing: FSIS will continue developing its current allergen verification sampling program at ready-to-eat (RTE) production facilities to include analysis for sesame. The program aims to ensure the accuracy of labeling claims for allergens in RTE products.
  • Cell-cultured products: FSIS and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly oversee the production of human food products made with cultured cells derived from livestock or poultry. FSIS samples cell-cultured meat and poultry food products, food contact surface swabs, and environmental swabs to verify establishment food safety programs and assess process control.

USDA-FSIS also collaborates with a variety of federal and state partners on sampling programs to advance food safety goals. Collaborative sampling programs in which the agency will take part in or conclude in FY 2025 include the FY 2024 Dioxin Survey, the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), retail sampling with Cooperative Agreement Program Laboratories in the Food Emergency Response Network, the National Residue Program (NRP) and state residue sample analysis, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) analysis, and isolate characterization for the State Meat and Poultry Inspection (MPI) Program and the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA-AMS) Commodity Purchase Program.

For its microbiological testing initiatives, in FY 2025, FSIS plans to collect 20,513 raw beef, 2,196 raw pork, and 36,609 raw poultry samples; 17,839 egg samples; 5,090 NARMS cecal samples; 180 cell-cultured samples; and 5,604 imports samples. This totals 88,031 samples, 2,123 less than FY 2024. For chemical residue testing initiatives, FSIS plans to collect 12,400 samples, including beef cows (752), bob veal (400), dairy cows (340), heifers (340), steer (328), sows (788), market swine (728), young chickens (388), young turkeys (388), sheep (100), lamb (100), goats (300), veal (150), egg products (100), Siluriformes (200), NRP state-inspected establishment sampling (300), imports (2,250), and kidney inhibition swabs (4,000).

FSIS to Modify Procedures to More Accurately Sample Raw Poultry Establishments

Additionally, FSIS has announced modifications to its Salmonella sampling task assignment procedures to set sampling frequency based on monthly production volume rather than daily production volume.

At present, FSIS may sample establishments that produce a larger amount of product in a single day more frequently than establishments that produce smaller volumes over many production days, even when the establishment with lower daily volume produces more product overall. Poultry establishments that produce at least 1,000 pounds (lbs.) of product per day are currently eligible for verification sampling, and FSIS collects four or five samples per month (once per week) from the largest-volume establishments to verify that establishments are meeting Salmonella performance standards in raw poultry products. The agency will continue to sample at this general frequency; however, under the new policy, establishments producing at least 1,000 lbs. per month are eligible for sampling, with those producing 1,000–20,000 lbs. per month sampled randomly approximately twice per year.

FSIS intends to incorporate these changes into sampling assignments in Quarter 2 (January–March) of FY 2025. Most establishments will experience no change in sampling frequency as a result of the new procedures. However, a few establishments producing less than 1,000 lbs. per day that were not previously assigned samples could now receive one to two tasks per year.