
Elizabeth Doughman, editor, WATT PoultryUSA and Poultry Future: Hello, I’m Elizabeth Doughman, the editor of WATT PoultryUSA and Poultry Future. In today’s episode, my guest is Bill Potter, Ph.D., poultry food safety and processing extension at the University of Arkansas.
Bill is one of the industry experts that will share the challenges and potential solutions for better Salmonella control in the broiler and turkey industries at the upcoming event and Poultry Future Panel Discussion: What’s next for Salmonella control in broilers and turkeys?
The panel discussion takes place Wednesday, January 29th from 8-9 a.m. EST at the Georgia World Congress Center during IPPE 2025.
Registration is FREE. For more information, go to poultryfutureevents.com.
Thanks for joining me today, Bill.
What’s the latest update on the proposed USDA FSIS Salmonella framework?
Bill Potter, Ph.D., poultry food safety and processing extension, University of Arkansas: The framework has been in the status of accepting comments for some period of months, and I know that comments have been accepted through January. There’s also been a proposal by some industry organizations and even some members of Congress to extend those comments into May.
At the current time, we're still in the comment period and I think the future is still yet to be seen for what's going to come out of the comments with the new administration how this is going to go forward.
But we all agree that this is the largest regulatory change in probably 25 years. It's affected the poultry industry, at least from the food safety side with some real fundamental changes that would apply to raw product requirements. Identifying certain serotypes above certain levels as adulterants is certainly a new fundamental interpretation of the meaning of adulterant.
In addition, specific serotypes of concern have been called out: Enteritidis, Typhimurium and I,4,[5],12:I:- in chicken, as well as Hadar, Typhimurium and Muenchen in turkey. That's all pretty new and highly impactful to the industry.
I think we're still in a transition period, and it remains to be seen exactly what the details are going forward in the final rule that comes out should it come out anytime soon.
Doughman: How could this framework affect poultry industry operations?
Potter: It'll be very impactful if it comes out as it's currently written or something close to the way it's written.
In live production, for example, if there are these specific serotypes of concern that are the focus. That brings up a whole series of deeper dives into what's going on preharvest causing these serotypes. It probably would indicate the need for more diagnostic testing, deeper dives and more data analysis at preharvest to kind of see what the impact is there.
I know a lot of folks at the processing plants are also wrestling with how to actually hold these lots, how to actually do microbial separation of the lots and how to more specifically formalize some of the statistical process control, monitoring and testing and comparing results to baseline.
It'll be pretty impactful – very impactful, in fact – across production and processing. And I think the identification of certain serotypes as adulterants is the biggest reason for that.
Doughman: What is a must do when it comes to Salmonella control?
Potter: In general terms, I think kind of a formalized Salmonella cross functional team that's not just at the processing plant but extends all the way back into the preharvest space is now one of those things that I'm seeing is very effective at many poultry complexes and companies.
I think it's a must do where you've got data being gathered to drive decisions that shared among veterinarians, live production managers and operators, hatchery managers, definitely plant managers, food safety and quality assurance leaders and managers and lab staff – when a cross functional effort at looking at data ongoing is kind of a just a routine part of the process.
I think that's a must do and then that drives decisions around do we at a complex need to look at different vaccination programs, different feed additives? Do we need to look at, maybe, at the processing plan on how we're monitoring point of pack antimicrobial results or actually applications? Are they being done during the point of application correctly?
These cross functional teams are kind of now a must do. We've had them for years and years at the processing plants under the HACCP teams, but these cross functional teams that go all the way back from live production through processing are here to stay and they're very effective when there's a lot of interaction.
Doughman: Conversely, what is a must don’t? What would you tell facilities to never ever do?
Potter: Some facilities, particularly those that are very small and have limited resources, can tend to rely too much just on the FSIS testing. We definitely need their results, but just relying on them would not be a prudent action at this time. There needs to be a comprehensive preharvest through processing monitoring type of an approach.
Doughman: If you had a magic wand, how would you reduce the incidence of Salmonella in the poultry industry?
Potter: A magic wand, to me, has two components. There are things that we would do preharvest and there are actions we would take in processing.
I mentioned some of these previously already, but at preharvest, I think the future looks like having a One Health approach to all of the activities that we do. This would be a voluntary, more formalized approach to the One Health system in pathogen management. What I mean by One Health is doing things that that lead to healthy animals, which leads to healthy people and a healthy planet and then having some way of managing that preharvest system through some formal programs.
These could be individual company written programs or they might be part of some kind of an agreed upon private standards at preharvest. There may be a need out there for some further development of something like a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) type of auditing program voluntarily. That could be used to take a deeper verification type of approach of things that are done at preharvest.
In addition, at preharvest, the magic wand in my book would be the next level of research. This could be through looking deeper at microbiomes and genomics and understanding a little more about what that information can tell us at preharvest, whether it be at the hatchery or whether it be the impact on feed additives and gut health, what impact Salmonella vaccines may have on the gut or in colonization of these pathogens in the tissues.
The microbiome is here to stay. Research is already way down this path, and whether it be through genomics or something related to the microbiome analysis, I think we're kind of there in the research world. How that can apply in real world applications, I think is on the horizon, maybe one of the next areas. Those are kind of the things in preharvest, to me that makes sense.
In processing plants, we sure need to have the ability to have flexible databased microbial monitoring plans. I think a continued combination of indicator organisms, along with some quantitative Salmonella and trend analysis makes a lot of sense. Setting baselines and working on continuous improvement makes sense.
I know in the proposal for component two, one of the safe harbor ways to measure statistical process control success is through reduction of these indicator aerobic counts, but that might not necessarily be the best way, particularly if plants that already have very low incoming quantitative loads at rehang. It may not necessarily be in their best interest to try to look at a minimum log reduction. It may be better for them to look at just making ongoing improvements at specific points of measure throughout their process, at rehang or in prechill, postchill or wherever. Some flexible database microbial monitoring, to me, will always make sense.
I guess kind of the last thing here is that whatever regulatory changes are made, I hope that in the future, we don't create systems that de-incentivize monitoring. And that's one of the challenges, I think, with the framework as it was proposed. Having to hold lots and keep product from entering commerce until results came back, it could be some extended length of time.
These types of regulatory approaches unfortunately can de-incentivize testing, so I hope that there will be something different – if they do come out – which are more quantitative based, but don't necessarily deal with a pass/fail measure of finished lots, but rather are more of an ongoing, continuous improvement approach.
Those are some of my thoughts about a magic wand for the future, and I know we’ll have more discussions about that in our roundtable panel.
Doughman: Thanks again, Bill, and thanks to you for tuning in.
And remember, to learn more about the challenges and potential solutions for better Salmonella control in the broiler and turkey industries, attend the upcoming Poultry Future Panel Discussion: What’s next for Salmonella control in broilers and turkeys? on Wednesday, January 29th from 8-9 a.m. EST at the Georgia World Congress Center during IPPE 2025.
For more information or to register for this free event, go to poultryfutureevents.com.
For more episodes of the Future of Poultry podcasts, please like and subscribe on WATTPoultry.com or wherever you access podcasts.