In October 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) announced the development of an enhanced food safety framework for the control of Salmonella in poultry. This week, FSIS has signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Maryland’s Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in partnership with EpiX Analytics, to develop two quantitative risk assessments: one for Salmonella in chicken and one for Salmonella in turkey. The risk assessments will provide FSIS with support for the new framework for reducing Salmonella illnesses linked to poultry products in the U.S.

The risk assessments will evaluate the public health impact (change in illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths) achieved by eliminating a proportion of poultry or poultry products that are contaminated with specific levels of Salmonella and/or specific Salmonella subtypes. The risk assessments will also explore the public health impacts of various monitoring and enforcing process control methods, from the re-hang to post-chill stages. Finally, the risk assessments will address the public health impact of implementing combinations of the aforementioned risk management strategies.

The risk assessments will undergo an independent peer review. FSIS will release the risk assessments once they are completed.