WASHINGTON – After the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced Salmonella will be considered an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products on April 26, the National Chicken Council pointed out that the determination could possibly result in plant closures, job eliminations and unnecessarily wasted food. 

According to the NCC, FSIS will consider not-ready-to-eat, frozen, raw, breaded, stuffed chicken products adulterated if it tests positive for the pathogen at levels as low as 1 CFU (colony forming unit), which is practically a zero tolerance policy that doesn’t consider the impact of cooking the products to a safe temperature. 

 “NCC is gravely concerned that the precedent set by this abrupt shift in longstanding policy has the potential to shutter processing plants, cost jobs, and take safe food and convenient products off shelves,” said NCC President Mike Brown. “We’re also surprised by FSIS’s victory lap here when the agency has no idea if this will move the needle on public health.” 

Products such as Chicken Kiev and chicken cordon bleu, which are traditionally sold raw and labeled with safe cooking instructions, are included in the determination.  

According to NCC’s estimates more than 200 million servings of these products will be lost as part of the FSIS determination. Additionally, job losses related to the regulation were estimated to be between 500 and 1,000. The backlash of the determination could be averted by adopting science-based public health policy. Declaring Salmonella an adulterant is not an effective health measure or an example of science-driven legislation, the NCC said. 

“USDA has devoted untold amounts of time, effort and taxpayer dollars – and is willing to drive up grocery store prices for consumers and impose millions of dollars of costs on American businesses – all to develop a policy intended to reduce foodborne illness outbreaks for a product that hasn’t even been associated with an outbreak in three years and that has been associated with only one outbreak in the past nine years,” Brown said.

Concise labeling along with vigilant raw material sourcing and adherence to strict process controls have proven to be effective measures that NCC has consistently urged the USDA to make mandatory, but to no avail. 

“There is no silver bullet or one-size-fits all approach to food safety, which is why we employ a multi-hurdle strategy,” Brown said. “The only way to ensure our food is safe 100% of the time is by following science-based procedures when raising and processing chicken, and by handling and cooking it properly at home.

“NCC remains confident these products can be prepared and consumed safely, and NCC member companies will continue to work day in and day out to implement sound, science-based food safety programs that will continue to make America’s most popular protein even safer,” he said.