The Foster Farms outbreak has unfolded at a time when Salmonella rates on whole chicken have been dropping industrywide, according to quarterly information published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS). Of the 2,955 chickens sampled during the quarter ending June 2013, 2.6 percent tested positive for Salmonella, down 26 percent from the previous quarter when 3.5 percent of 3,786 samples tested positive.
Those rates are well below the 7.5 percent standard for Salmonella on whole chicken set by the USDA. Some of the illnesses in this outbreak have been linked to whole chicken produced by Foster Farms and prepared and sold as whole rotisserie chickens at a Costco store in San Francisco.
Three Foster Farms facilites in California have been associated with this outbreak. In warning letters sent to them earlier this month, FSIS said “as evidenced by the multiple Salmonella positive test results in poultry parts, whole chickens, and chicken tenderloins/strips produced at your facility, your establishment is unable to support that Salmonella is a biological food safety hazard not reasonably likely to occur in your Raw Intact and Raw Non Intact processes.”
The agency noted that during September- months after the company was notified about this outbreak, its second during 2013, Salmonella rates at the three facilities associated with the outbreak were 24.7 percent, 26.7 percent and 25.3 percent. Foster Farms says that these rates are on chicken parts for which there is no government standard. “Even though the USDA has not established a performance standard for chicken parts, Foster Farms has committed to improving our processes in order to reach a 5 percent parts standard,” the company says on its website.
The first Foster Farms outbreak, announced in February of this year, was associated with a plant in Kelso, Washington. After that outbreak, the company instituted a number of practices to control Salmonella, which were successful, according to the FSIS letters which all state,”Your sister facility, Establishment 6164A, in Kelso, Washington, was also under intensified FSIS Salmonella verification testing. However, Establishment 6164A demonstrated a more consistent and effective process control based on the results of the microbiological testing, along with less evidence of illnesses being associated with product from this establishment. The samples collected from Establishment 6164A resulted in a 1.3% (2/150 samples) Salmonella positive rate with only one of the positive samples being associated with the Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak strain.”
Foster Farms has been aware for more than a year that Salmonella on the chicken it produces is making people sick. Since June 2012, 496 people have been diagnosed with lab confirmed Salmonella infections from these products. If they know there’s a problem and they know how to fix it why does the company continue to be sited by FSIS for “multiple, regulatory noncompliances for insanitary conditions at those plants.”
After two outbreaks and multiple warnings it should be clear, as FSIS told them again this month, that “pathogens such as Salmonella are of serious public health concern and can cause a variety of illnesses. The organism can cause a serious infection which can lead to illnesses, including death. ”
