The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a few things on its Constituency Update regarding food security this week.
Two of the items involve the USDA’s Food Inspection and Safety Service and one involves the National Microbiological Criteria Council for Food. Two of the articles are related to Salmonella control in poultry.
Today, the National Microbiological Criteria for Food Council (NACMCF) has a subcommittee meeting set for 2 p.m. at 5 p.m. EDT on the theme of “Increasing Salmonella control in poultry products”.
The NACMCF plans to provide impartial, scientific, and peer-reviewed advice to federal food safety agencies for use in developing an integrated approach to national food safety systems that ensures the safety of domestic, imported, and exported foods. .
To attend the virtual meeting, contact the NACMCF Secretariat at NACMCF@usda.gov or John Jarosh, NACMCF Designated Federal Officer, by email at john.jarosh@usda.gov.
FSIS will include the quantification of Salmonella in raw poultry rinsing samples
In other news about the control of Salmonella in raw poultry, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that it has awarded a contract to bioMérieux to incorporate its unenriched quantification system for Salmonella. The system is called “GENE-UP ™ QUANT Salmonella” and will be added to the agency’s laboratory system.
The agency evaluated the commercially available quantification systems and determined that this technology is most suitable for use in the high-performance FSIS laboratory environment. A future Constituency Update will announce when the method is available and when it will be implemented in all three FSIS food testing laboratories.
The quantification of Salmonella is a significant step in FSIS’s efforts to reduce Salmonella diseases associated with poultry and to modernize the diagnostic capabilities of FSIS food testing laboratories. Using this new system, FSIS will be able to measure the amount of Salmonella present in a regulatory sample, not just its presence or absence.
FSIS plans to extend pathogen quantification technology to other sample types from raw poultry washes in the future. FSIS will continue to use Chapter 4.11 of the Microbiology Laboratory Guide to isolate and identify Salmonella in raw poultry washes.
FSIS will participate in the NARMS public meeting
Registration for the 2022 National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) public meeting set for September 21-22 is now open. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is hosting a public meeting.
At the meeting, officials plan to share NARMS progress from the adoption of the NARMS Strategic Plan: 2021-2025. The successes of the last NARMS public meeting in 2020 and future plans will be highlighted. As a NARMS partner, FSIS will make presentations regarding the agency’s results.
The virtual public meeting is set for Sept. 21 from noon to 5 p.m. EDT; and Sept. 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EDT. In addition, there will be a demonstration of how to access NARMS data online on September 20, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT. Separate registration is required for each session.
To register for the NARMS technical workshop and / or for the public meeting, complete the information requested on the following websites:
To participate in the public comment session on September 22 from 3:40 to 4:15 p.m., send an email to Claudine Kabera (claudine.kabera@fda.hhs.gov) from September 14 and include which topic (s) you would like . address.
A transcript of the meeting will be available 30 days after the meeting. For more information, visit the FDA public meeting website
