Shopper study shows need for Salmonella safety campaign

Consumers who purchase raw poultry at the grocery store often put themselves at risk for a Salmonella simply by not putting the poultry in a plastic bag, revealing the need for an educational campaign.

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(Fatality | BigStockPhoto.com)
(Fatality | BigStockPhoto.com)

Consumers who purchase raw poultry at the grocery store often put themselves at risk for a Salmonella simply by not putting the poultry in a plastic bag, revealing the need for an educational campaign.

Drs. Sandria Godwin, Tennessee State University, and Edgar Chambers IV, Kansas State University, reviewed the outcome of a recent consumer study while speaking at the Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition (IFSN) seminar, Developing consumer messages for proper handling of poultry and eggs: The research.

Godwin and Chambers explained a recent study that was done, where shoppers were followed in the grocery store and to their homes after the shopping trip was done with little intervention during the process. Of the shoppers, around 100 bought some form of raw poultry.

“The potential for cross-contamination starts at the grocery store,” explained Chambers.

One of the biggest ways a shopper can prevent cross-contamination is by putting raw poultry products in a plastic bag at the store, he said.

However, only about 25 percent of those observed in the study did so.

Later in the study, Chambers and Godwin watched consumers shopping for poultry where there was a sign by the plastic bags that said: “For your safety and convenience, bag your meat.”

However, even with the sign in place, there was no real difference in the percentage of consumers that bagged their raw poultry.

“To me, the lesson here is just putting up a sign doesn’t do anything. It has to be part of a larger educational campaign explaining why,” said Chambers. “People need to know the why behind the message.”

Tracking cross-contamination

To see if there was any sort of cross-contamination during the shopper study, swabs were taken throughout the observation of consumers’ hands, the outside of all poultry packages, items touched by the poultry in the cart, a surface that the poultry touched at the consumers’ home and the inside of the grocery bag if it was not thrown away.

The swabs showed that at some amount of poultry juice was found on all the items touched if poultry was not bagged before being placed in the cart. The most common things showing traces of poultry juice were the cart handle, a child or the next 2-3 items that were handled after the poultry was handled.

When the poultry was bagged, there was no cross contamination, Chambers said.

How long Salmonella survives

Godwin noted that once the poultry items were in people’s homes, the presence of Salmonella remained much longer than most people would think.

She said Salmonella can survive up to seven days in the refrigerator, or on another item like a milk carton if it was touched by the raw chicken. In a grocery bag, it can last three months or longer, she said. Running a cloth shopping bag through a washing machine after it has been contaminated with Salmonella is not a sufficient way to sanitize it, she added, because the water in a washing machine does not reach a high enough temperature rid the bag of Salmonella.

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