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Is the poultry industry ready for new Salmonella framework?
546 Plays8 days ago
Elizabeth Doughman, editor, WATT Poultry USA and Poultry Future talks with Bill Potter, Ph.D., poultry food safety and processing extension at the University of Arkansas, about how the poultry industry can prepare for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) proposed Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Future of Poultry podcast series.
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello, I'm Elizabeth Duffman, the editor of Watt Poultry USA and Poultry Future. In today's episode, my guest is Bill Potter, PhD, Poultry Food Safety and Processing Extension at the University of Arkansas.
Upcoming Panel on Salmonella Control
00:00:27
Speaker
Bill is one of the industry experts that will share the challenges and potential solutions for better salmonella control in the broiler and turkey industries at the upcoming event and poultry future panel discussion, what's next for salmonella control in broilers and turkeys. The panel discussion takes place Wednesday, January 29th from 8 to 9 a.m. Eastern at the Georgia World Congress Center during IPPE 2025.
USDA FSIS Salmonella Framework Update
00:00:56
Speaker
Registration is free, and for more information, go to poultryfutureevents.com. Thanks for joining me today, Bill. What's the latest update on the proposed USDA FSIS Salmonella framework? Well, the framework has been in the status of accepting comments for some period of months, and I know that comments have been accepted through January, and there's there was a proposal by some industry organizations uh, even some members of Congress to extend those comments even into
Regulatory Changes in Poultry Industry
00:01:30
Speaker
May. But at the current time, we're you know still point of having received comments. And I think the future is still yet to be seen what's going to come out of the comments and and how, you know, with the new administration, how this is going to go forward. But we do all, I think agree that this is the largest regulatory change.
00:01:51
Speaker
In probably 25 years, it's affected the poultry industry, at least from the food safety side. You know, with some real fundamental changes that would apply to raw product requirements, you know, identifying certain serotypes above certain levels and ah as adulterants is certainly a new fundamental interpretation of of the meaning of adulterant.
00:02:13
Speaker
And these specific serotypes of concern that had been called out, you know, typhimirium, monophasic typhimirium, and enteritidis in chicken, as well as typhimirium, hadar, and munching in
Operational Changes and Serotype Focus
00:02:24
Speaker
turkeys. Having these specific ones called out and requiring there to be processes and in play and product retention in place to control these when they're tested, that's all pretty new and very highly impactful to the industry. But the latest update, I think we're still in a transition period and remains to be seen. exactly what the details are going forward and in the final rule that comes out, should it come out anytime soon.
00:02:49
Speaker
How could this framework affect poultry industry operations? It'll be ah very impactful if it comes out as it's currently written or something close to the way it's written. In live production, for example, if there are these specific serotypes of concern that are the focus, well, that would bring up on a whole series of deeper dives into what's going on pre-harvest, causing these serotypes probably would indicate the need for more diagnostic testing, deeper dives, and more data analysis at preharvest.
00:03:24
Speaker
kind of see what the impact is there. you know I know a lot of folks are also at the processing plants wrestling with how to actually hold these lots, how to actually do microbial separation of the lots, how to kind of more specifically formalize some of the statistical process control monitoring and testing and comparing results to baselines. So it'll it'll be pretty ah impactful, very impactful, in fact, across production and processing. And I think the Identification of certain serotypes as adulterants is the biggest reason for
Cross-Functional Teams in Salmonella Control
00:03:58
Speaker
that. In your mind, what's a must do when it comes to salmonella control?
00:04:03
Speaker
I guess in general terms, I think kind of a formalized Salmonella cross functional team, not just at the processing plant, but extends all the way back into the pre-harvest space is now kind of one of those things that I'm seeing is very effective at at many poultry complexes and companies. and And I think it's just kind of a must do where you're, you've got data being gathered to drive decisions that shared among veterinarians, live production up managers and operators, hatchery managers, you know, definitely plant managers, food safety and quality assurance leaders, and managers, lab staff, where this cross-functional effort at looking at data ongoing is kind of a just a routine part of the process. So I think that's kind of a must do and then that kind of drives decisions around, you know, do we
00:04:55
Speaker
at a complex need to look at different vaccination programs, different feed additives. Do we need to look at maybe at the processing plan on how we're monitoring point of pack antimicrobial results or actually applications? Are they being done during the point of application correctly? So these cross-functional teams are kind of now a must do. We've had them for years and years at the processing plants under the HACCP teams, but these cross-functional teams that go all the way back from live production through processing. I think are here to stay and and they're very effective when there's a lot of interaction.
Limitations of Sole FSIS Testing Reliance
00:05:32
Speaker
Conversely, what's a must-don't, or or what would you tell facilities to never ever do? Yeah, I mean, some facilities, I'd say particularly some that are very small, they have limited resources, can tend to rely too much just on the FSIS testing. I mean, we definitely need their results, but certainly just relying on them, I would consider to be not a prudent act action at this time, there needs to be a comprehensive pre-harvest through processing monitoring type of
One Health Approach to Salmonella Reduction
00:06:01
Speaker
an approach. If you had a magic wand, how would you reduce the incidence of salmonella in the poultry industry? Well, um a magic wand to me kind of and has two components. There's things that we would do pre-harvest and there's actions we would take in processing. I've mentioned some of these previously already, but at pre-harvest, I think the future
00:06:23
Speaker
kind of looks like having a One Health approach to all of the activities that we do at pre-harvest. This would be a voluntary, more formalized approach to the One Health system in pathogen management. and But what I mean by One Health is, you know, health doing things that that add to healthy animals, which leads to healthy people, healthy planet, and and and then having some way of managing that pre-harvest system through some formal pre-harvest programs. and These could be individual company written programs, or they might be part of some kind of ah agreed upon private standards at pre-harvest. There may be a need out there for for some further development of something like ah
00:07:10
Speaker
GFSI type of auditing program, voluntarily that is, that could be used to take just take a deeper verification type of approach of of things that are done at pre-harvest. And then at pre-harvest, definitely the magic wand and in my book would would be just next level of of research. This could be through looking deeper at microbiomes and genomics.
00:07:35
Speaker
understanding a little more about what that information can tell us at pre-harvest, whether it be at the hatchery or whether it be the impact on feed additives and in gut health, you know what impact salmonella vaccines may have on the gut or in product or in colonization of these pathogens in the tissues. But microbiome is kind of here to stay. and you know Research is already way down this path and whether it be through genomics or or something related to the microbiome analysis. I think we're kind of there in the research world and how that can apply in real world application. I think it's kind of on the horizon, maybe one of the next areas. So those are kind of the things in pre-harvest to me that makes sense. And then in processing plants, we sure need to have the ability to have flexible database to microbial monitoring plans. I think a continued combination of indicator organisms
00:08:30
Speaker
along with some quantitative salmonella and trend analysis makes a lot of sense. Setting baselines and working on continuous improvement makes sense. I know in the proposal and in component two, kind of the safe harbor ways to measure statistical process control success is through reduction of these indicator aerobic counts. But that might not necessarily be the best way, particularly if plants that already have very, very low incoming quantitative loads at rehanging, it may not necessarily be in in their best interest to to try to look at a minimum log reduction that may be better for them to look at just making ongoing improvements at specific
00:09:10
Speaker
points of measure throughout their process, at rehang or in pre-chill, post-chill, or wherever. So some flexible database microbial monitoring to me will will always make sense. And then I guess kind of the last thing here is is whatever regulatory changes are made, I hope in the future that we don't create systems that de-incentivize monitoring. And that's one of the challenges, I think, with the framework as as it was proposed, is that you know by having to hold lots and keep product
00:09:40
Speaker
from entering commerce until results came back, which could be some extended length of time. These types of regulatory approaches, unfortunately, can de-incentivize
Advocating for Regulatory Incentives
00:09:51
Speaker
testing. So I hope that there'll be some different standards that come out if they do come out, which are more quantitative based, but don't necessarily deal with a pass-fail measure of finished lots, but rather are more of a ongoing continuous improvement approach. Those are some of my thoughts about a magic wand for the future. but I know that we'll have more discussions about that in our roundtable panel. Thanks again, Bill, and thanks to you for tuning in. Remember to learn more about the challenges and potential solutions for better salmonella control in the broiler and turkey industries, attend the upcoming Poultry Future panel discussion, What's Next for Salmonella Control in Broilers and Turkeys?
00:10:34
Speaker
on Wednesday, January 29th from 8 to 9 a.m. Eastern at the Georgia World Congress Center during IPPE 2025. For more information or to register for this free event, go to poultryfutureevents.com. And for more episodes of the Future of Poultry podcast, please like and subscribe on whatpoultry.com or wherever you access podcasts.