I recall sitting in the office one day in the fall of 2018 when I received a call from a reporter who informed me that there had been a further outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 linked to romaine lettuce. After an initial response of “oh, no,” the reporter asked why do we continue to have outbreaks linked to lettuce? 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently announced plans to plans to significantly expand its routine verification testing for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STECs), which includes the six non-O157 strains O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145.

FSIS is proposing updated Salmonella performance standards for raw ground beef and new Salmonella performance standards for beef manufacturing trimmings.

The hot topic of the day is the new swine inspection rule. There appears to be a lot of fake news being tossed around, at the very least a lot of information about how this is going to affect industry and how the consumer is being left out.

The programs are key components of the agency's verification activities to ensure inspections are effective at keeping microbiological contaminants and chemical residues out of commerce.