Standards aim to cut down on salmonella in poultry industry

WASHINGTON – The government is pushing the poultry industry to make its chicken and turkey a little safer with new standards aimed at reducing the number of cases of foodborne illness by 50,000 a year.

The proposed standards announced Wednesday by the Agriculture Department apply to the most popular poultry products – chicken breasts, legs and wings, and ground chicken and turkey. They are voluntary but designed to pressure companies to lower rates of salmonella and campylobacter, another pathogen that can cause symptoms similar to salmonella, in their products.

Among the measures companies could take to reduce the rates of those pathogens: better screening of flocks and better sanitation.

The proposal would ask poultry producers to reduce the rates of salmonella in raw chicken parts from about 24 percent now to less than 16 percent, and campylobacter rates in raw chicken parts from 22 percent to 8 percent. Rates also would be reduced in ground chicken and turkey, and sampling would be done over a longer period of time to ensure accuracy.

The Agriculture Department said the standards eventually could reduce salmonella and campylobacter illnesses linked to raw poultry by about a quarter, or 50,000 illnesses a year.

“We are taking specific aim at making the poultry items that Americans most often purchase safer to eat,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Ashley Peterson of the National Chicken Council said the industry already has made improvements. She said poultry companies have been exploring options to reduce contamination, including strengthened sanitation programs, temperature controls and processing procedures.