USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced its final determination to declare Salmonella an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products when they exceed a specific threshold of 1 colony forming unit (CFU) per gram or higher for Salmonella contamination.

This determination is part of the agency’s efforts to reduce Salmonella illnesses associated with the raw poultry supply in the U.S. FSIS intends to address Salmonella contamination in other raw poultry products later this year.

“This final determination marks the first time that Salmonella is being declared an adulterant in a class of raw poultry products,” said Tom Vilsack, agriculture secretary, in an April 26 statement. “This policy change is important because it will allow us to stop the sale of these products when we find levels of Salmonella contamination that could make people sick.”

FSIS will carry out verification procedures, including sampling and testing of the raw incoming chicken component of these products prior to stuffing and breading, to ensure producing establishments control Salmonella in these products. If the chicken component in these products does not meet this standard, the product lot represented by the sampled component would not be permitted to be used to produce the final raw breaded stuffed chicken products. The determination, including FSIS’ sampling and verification testing, will be effective 12 months after its publication in the Federal Register.

In determining that Salmonella is an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products, FSIS considered the best available science and data using similar criteria as in its 1994, 1999, and 2011 E. coli policymaking. When FSIS declared seven Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) strains to be adulterants in select raw beef products, it relied on several factors, including the available information on serotypes linked to human illnesses, infectious dose, severity of illnesses and typical consumer preparation practices associated with a product. The breaded stuffed chicken products determination relied on the same factors.

FSIS and its public health partners have investigated 14 Salmonella outbreaks and approximately 200 illnesses associated with these products since 1998. The most recent outbreak was in 2021 and resulted in illnesses across 11 states. These products account for less than 0.15% of the total domestic chicken supply, but outbreaks linked to these products represented approximately 5% of all chicken-associated outbreaks in the U.S. from 1998 to 2020.

Raw breaded stuffed chicken products are pre-browned and may appear cooked, but the chicken is raw. The products are typically cooked by consumers from a frozen state, which increases the risk of the product not reaching the internal temperature needed to destroy Salmonella. Despite to improve labeling, these products continue to be associated with Salmonella illness outbreaks.

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PITTSBURGH—During this year’s International Association for Food Protection Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, Sandra Eskin, USDA deputy undersecretary for food safety, announced that the agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will declaring all strains of Salmonella an adulterant in breaded and stuffed raw chicken products.

The announcement came during a session at the meeting on August 1. Since 1998, breaded and stuffed raw chicken products have been associated with up to 14 outbreaks and approximately 200 illnesses, according to USDA. Products in this category are found in the freezer section and include some chicken cordon bleu or chicken Kiev products. These products appear cooked, but they are heat-treated only to set the batter or breading and the product contains raw poultry. Continual efforts to improve the product labeling have not been effective at reducing consumer illnesses.

Breaded and stuffed raw chicken products will be considered adulterated when they exceed a very low level of Salmonella contamination and would be subject to regulatory action, according to USDA. FSIS will be proposing to set the limit at 1 colony forming unit (CFU) of Salmonella per gram for these products, a level that the agency believes will significantly reduce the risk of illness from consuming these products. The agency will also seek comment on whether a different standard for adulteration, such as zero tolerance or one based on specific serotypes, would be more appropriate.

The notice is expected to publish in the federal register in the fall and FSIS will be seeking public comments that address what the standard should be. Once published, the notice will be posted in the FSIS Federal Register and Rulemaking page for review and comment. When the proposal is finalized, FSIS will announce its final implementation plans and the date it will begin routine testing for Salmonella in these products.

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Serenade Foods, a Milford, Ind. establishment, is recalling approximately 59,251 pounds of frozen, raw, breaded, and pre-browned stuffed chicken products that may be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis, according to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). FSIS issued a public health alert on June 2, 2021 related to these products.

The frozen, raw, breaded and pre-browned, stuffed chicken items were produced on February 24, 2021 and February 25, 2021. The following products are subject to the recall:

• Dutch Farms Chicken with Broccoli & Cheese (lot code BR 1055; best if used by Feb. 24, 2023);
• Milford Valley Chicken with Broccoli & Cheese (lot code BR 1055; best if used by Feb. 24, 2023);
• Milford Valley Chicken Cordon Bleu (lot code CB 1055; best if used by Feb. 24, 2023);
• Kirkwood Raw Stuffed Chicken, Broccoli & Cheese (lot code BR 1055; best if used by Feb. 24, 2023); and
• Kirkwood Raw Stuffed Chicken Cordon Bleu (lot code CB 1056; best if used by Feb. 25, 2023).

FSIS has been working with the CDC and public health partners to investigate a multistate outbreak of 28 Salmonella Enteritidis illnesses in eight states, with onset dates ranging from Feb. 21 through June 28, 2021. Unopened intact packages of raw, frozen, breaded chicken stuffed with broccoli and cheese were collected from an ill person’s home and tested positive for the outbreak strain of Salmonella Enteritidis.

FSIS continues to work with the CDC and state and local public health partners on this investigation.

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The back of Incubated Worlds, an advanced poultry research and breeding facility in Ethiopia with art installation from Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen, who has been cross breeding chickens for the past 20 years. Photo courtesy of the International Livestock Research Institute

Researchers in Ethiopia are embarking on a quest to create the perfect chicken for African farmers with an unlikely ally—a Belgian conceptual artist who has spent 20 years crossbreeding indigenous chickens, from China and Egypt to Senegal and Cuba.

Incubated Worlds, a research and breeding center in the capital Addis Ababa, will also house a permanent art installation showcasing the work of Koen Vanmechelen, including photographs, videos, and books of chickens’ genetic codes.

“It’s the most sexy chicken coop in the world,” said Vanmechelen, whose Cosmopolitan Chicken Project set out to create a chicken carrying the genes of all the planet’s breeds.

The artist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that each successive generation of Cosmopolitan Chickens is more resilient, lives longer, and is less susceptible to diseases, proving the importance of genetic diversity.

At the center, scientists from the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and local partners will compare different types of Ethiopian chickens and crossbreed them naturally with others, including Vanmechelen’s.

A quarter of the world’s 815 million undernourished people are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and climate conditions are worsening hunger, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Feeding children an egg a day could prevent stunting, a condition resulting from poor nutrition which hinders cognitive growth, learning and economic potential, research shows.

Some 58 million children are stunted in Africa, costing $25 billion a year, according to the African Development Bank.

Olivier Hanotte, a scientist with ILRI in Addis Ababa, said crossbreeding Vanmechelen’s highly diverse birds with local varieties could result in a breed that is healthier and more resilient, but they must also be productive.

“What we want is…an animal who produces eggs, which would grow relatively fast and can reach a weight of two to three kilos in a minimum amount of time,” he said.

Hanotte praised Vanmechelen for doing what scientists could not – creating a unique population of chickens that gives a snapshot of the genetic diversity of birds outside Ethiopia.

“That is a fantastic resource for us,” he said.

“There’s no way that as a scientist I would have gotten a grant for 20 years to do this sort of experiment.”

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A consumer and public health group is pressing McDonald’s Corp. to set a timeline for phasing out the routine use of medically important antibiotics in the beef and pork it serves, amid warnings that the practice fuels dangerous drug-resistant superbug infections in people.

The petition drive by U.S. PIRG Education Fund is the latest in a broad campaign from the World Health Organization (WHO), investors, advocacy groups, and even nuns, to pressure farmers to curb or eliminate the use of those life-saving drugs on food animals.

In the U.S., an estimated 70 percent of antibiotics that are important to fighting human infections and ensuring the safety of invasive procedures such as surgeries are sold for use on farms.

Scientists warn that the use of antibiotics to promote growth and prevent illness in healthy farms animals contributes to the rise of dangerous antibiotic-resistant superbug infections, which kill at least 23,000 Americans each year and pose a significant threat to global health.

As the world’s biggest hamburger chain and a significant buyer of pork for its bacon and McRib sandwiches, McDonald’s has an outsize influence on farm practices.

“The Big Mac can make a big dent in stopping the misuse of antibiotics in our food system,” said Matthew Wellington, antibiotics program director for U.S. PIRG.

McDonald’s in 2016 was the first major fast-food chain to shift its U.S. chicken supply to birds raised without medically important antibiotics, its effort spurred most of its rivals and major chicken suppliers to follow.

McDonald’s in August said it would begin curbing the use of high-value human antibiotics in its global chicken supply in 2018 and begin working on antibiotic plans for other meats, dairy cows, and laying hens.

The company was not immediately available after normal business hours for comment.

The U.S. FDA recently said sales and distribution of medically important antibiotics for food production fell 14 percent from 2015 to 2016, the first decline in year-to-year sales since the agency began collecting the data in 2009.

FDA said chicken accounted for 6 percent of medically important antibiotic sales, while swine and cattle came in at 37 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

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Chickens fed a standard feed diet supplemented with a probiotic had improved weight gain and a lower death rate. It is hoped that this supplementation with a probiotic may help curtail the growth of foodborne pathogens in poultry-derived foods.

The demand for antibiotic-free poultry is growing in the U.S., with sales of probiotic-fed chicken products increasing. The industry continues also to lessen the number of weeks required to raise a market-weight chicken, with that time now about 6 weeks. That represents a marked reduction in time over the past several decades, according to the National Chicken Council, which has been tracking U.S. broiler performance since 1925.

Research is underway by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service and the University of Arkansas to investigate whether probiotics can help reduce foodborne pathogens, such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, in poultry. The investigators hope to identify natural non-antibiotic treatments to improve gut health in chickens, which would enhance the microbiological safety of poultry-derived foods.

According to researchers at Oklahoma State University Poultry Research Unit, previous studies in chickens have found that probiotics can help alleviate production losses when antibiotics are not used by poultry farmers. “Direct-fed microbials encourage healthy gut development, decrease disease-causing microbes in the digestive system and improve broiler performance,” they said in a recent issue of Cowpoke, a publication from the Department of Animal Science at Oklahoma State University.

The researchers at Oklahoma State compared the performance data of 300 broiler chickens raised on diets supplemented by four different preparations of probiotics. The probiotics were selected for their high production of exoenzymes. Hard wheat, flour, and water were fermented to enrich the microorganism’s spores.

Patricia Rayas, PhD, food and agricultural processing cereal chemist at the university, says the team’s hypothesis was that probiotics “would improve the community of microbes in the gut of the broiler” and help defend the immune system from unwanted bacteria. The research team is now working with the university’s technology development center to patent mixtures of probiotic strains for particular uses. A next plan for research is focused on using a spore-based probiotic that “supports the balance of the micro-ecology by stimulating the colonization of beneficial bacteria,” Dr. Rayas explains. “This will improve the broilers’ intestinal health and enhance growth performance. In the future we hope to create a mixture so the industry can maintain a healthier intestine for the chickens.”

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A six-month study by researchers at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences confirms information from the FDA and CDC that eggs from both large and small flocks of chicken can be contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis.

The CDC has reported that eight multistate outbreaks of human Salmonella infections have been linked to live poultry in backyard flocks during the first nine months of 2016: 895 people have been infected in 48 states, including 209 hospitalizations and three deaths; 254 of the illnesses have been among children 5 years of age or younger. This is the largest number of illnesses linked to contact with backyard poultry ever recorded.

Subhashinie Kariyawasam, PhD, microbiology section head at Penn State’s Animal Diagnostic Laboratory, and colleagues purchased two to four dozen eggs from each of 240 randomly selected farmers markets or roadside stands representing small layer flocks in 67 Pennsylvania counties. The researchers cultured separately the internal contents of the eggs and eggshells for Salmonella using standard protocols. Two percent of the eggs tested positive for the pathogen, a higher prevalence than has been found in studies of eggs from large flocks of 3,000 birds or more.

Dr. Kariyawasam presented their research at the recent meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Avian Pathologists. The research, she says, “highlights the potential risk posed by the consumption of eggs produced by backyard and small layer flocks.” The analysis of the Salmonella enteritidis showed that the pathogens were the same type commonly reported to the CDC from human foodborne outbreaks, she says.

The FDA guidance for prevention of Salmonella enteritidis applies to egg producers with flocks larger than 3,000 laying hens. Among the prevention measures spelled out in the rule are ones limiting visitors on the farm and in the poultry houses, and preventing stray poultry, wild birds, cats, and other animals from entering the poultry houses. These prevention measures include three basic components: isolation, traffic control, and sanitation. The egg rule requires intensive monitoring for rodents and flies, removal of manure, continuous testing from any Salmonella-positive poultry house, and other regulations.

These regulations, however, do not apply to backyard hens or small flocks. The FDA advises that backyard chickens, ducks, and other poultry, even those organically fed, commonly carry Salmonella, meaning that humans who handle these birds and eat their eggs may be exposed to the pathogen. The FDA and the CDC offer prevention advice for people who keep backyard chickens: handwashing immediately after touching poultry; washing clothes after contact; not drinking or eating in the area where birds live or roam; prohibiting children younger than 5 years or adults older than 65 or people with weakened immune systems from handling or touching chicks, ducklings, or other live poultry; not snuggling or kissing the birds; and not consuming raw or undercooked eggs.

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Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have found new evidence that eating Escherichia coli-contaminated chicken can cause urinary tract infections (UTIs).

These results raise important public health issues, primary author Amee Manges, PhD, MPH, told Food Quality. The first issue is “that E. coli transferred in food—which we usually think of as causing diarrhea—may actually be responsible for many UTIs and other infections outside the gut. [The second issue is] that these E. coli may be resistant to antibiotics, due to use in food animal production.” Dr. Manges is an assistant professor in the department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill.

Lee W. Riley, MD, professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases, University of California, Berkeley, said this is an important study because it “clearly shows that E. coli strains found in common food can cause extra-intestinal infection, such as UTI. That is, E. coli that causes human illness is not just limited to those that cause diarrhea.”

Acquired From a Common Source

The researchers’ previous work revealed that some women were developing UTIs due to the same E. coli strain. “Usually you see this kind of pattern of infections with the same strain in disease outbreak settings. So we thought that maybe these women were acquiring their E. coli from a common source; the most likely candidate was food.”

Dr. Manges and colleagues collected E. coli isolates from study participants, restaurant/ready-to-eat foods, and retail chicken in the Montreal area between 2005 and 2007. They collaborated with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the University of Guelph. Their results showed that some of the E. coli found in retail chicken meat was closely related to the E. coli that causes UTIs in humans.

Eating E. coli-contaminated food does not directly cause a UTI, Dr. Manges said. “Once in the gut, the E. coli don’t cause any problems,” she said. “Then something happens to cause a UTI or other infection outside the gut. UTIs often occur in young women because they are sexually active. The mechanics of sex help move the E. coli from the gut” via the anus “to the vagina and urethra, leading to infection.”

Looking for Direct Evidence

Research on this topic is ongoing. “We are working to provide even more direct evidence of a link, if one exists, that these E. coli—extraintestinal E. coli—can be transferred via food,” Dr. Manges said. “If this is the case, we will also look at markers of drug-resistance to see if resistant E.coli are also transferred.”

More research must determine the extent of this problem. “The issue is how widespread is the UTI caused by foodborne E. coli? We don’t know since studies specifically looking at this question are recently being done,” Dr. Riley told Food Quality.

The difficult task is how to apply these results to food safety. Preventing food contamination by uropathogenic E. coli at the animal reservoir or food processing sites is challenging, Dr. Riley said. “One thing the food industry can do is to avoid using antibiotics as growth promoters. If this practice is stopped, we can at least prevent drug-resistant E. coli from spreading by food.”

James R. Johnson, MD, director, Infectious Disease Fellowship Program and professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, told Food Quality that there are a few other preventive approaches, including more hygienic food processing and distribution methods, irradiating foods, washing fruits and vegetables before consumption, careful kitchen hygiene, and thoroughly cooking meats. ■

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