A Kansas State University researcher has received a $589,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA’s ARS) to explore pre-harvest opportunities for predicting and controlling Salmonella in turkey meat. Jessie Vipham, the Kansas State assistant professor leading the study, has partnered with Cargill to conduct on-farm tests.
The goal of the study is to identify an effective pre-harvest, pre-grind sampling strategy to predict Salmonella contamination in turkey flocks that are being raised for ground meat. Salmonella in ground turkey is of concern because, according to USDA, 18 percent of ground turkey samples tested positive for Salmonella in 2020, despite the pathogen rarely being detected in whole turkeys.