The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a scientific opinion on mitigation strategies for the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)—a global food safety and public health threat—among food-producing animals during transport.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently published two reports—one on control measures for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in meat and dairy products, and another reviewing Listeria monocytogenes attribution, characterization, and monitoring in ready-to-eat (RTE) foods.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has proposed a regulatory framework that would change food safety in the poultry industry, including new flock testing requirements, enhancing process control and verification, and implementing enforceable final product standards.
The meat and poultry industries are an interesting mix of conservative practices and innovation. This article examines five topics and their implications to protein food, including meat safety as a model for the produce industry; increased interest in Salmonella and Listeria; USDA proposed rulemaking for meat and poultry; the move toward aggregated sampling; and developing safety needs for tissue-cultivated products.
A continuous improvement approach may be useful for poultry operations aiming to reduce the presence of Salmonella in their flocks, in light of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s initiative that includes increased quantitative microbial monitoring of incoming flocks to processing plants.
Arkansas is the 29th state to enter into a cooperative agreement that allows for Arkansas’ inspection program to inspect meat products produced for intrastate shipment under the State Meat and Poultry Inspection program.
A California U.S. District Court has upheld the authority of swine processing plant employees to pre-sort animals prior to slaughter as outlined in the Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection Rule under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s New Swine Inspection Service.
To understand and eventually reduce the risk of salmonellosis from poultry meat, it is necessary to understand the poultry production system, the introduction of the microorganism into the poultry ecosystem (as well as its gastrointestinal tract), the sources of Salmonella during production, and, subsequently, strategies to control or reduce the risk from this microorganism at both the pre-and post-harvest stages. Part 2 of this article series examines pre-harvest controls during grow-out.
A study conducted by the UK Food Standards Agency has reported a noticeable increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Campylobacter from chicken meat to certain antibiotics over the last two decades; however, there has not been a significant increase since 2014.
In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we chat with Dr. John Butts, Principal at Food Safety By Design LLC and the Advisor to the CEO at Land O' Frost Inc., about Upton Sinclair’s groundbreaking 1906 novel, The Jungle. We discuss parallels between today’s food safety landscape and the food safety challenges of the meatpacking industry in the early 20th century, as well as where the next half-century may take the food sector.