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APPPA Responds to Proposed FSIS Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products

by | Jan 14, 2025 | USDA | 0 comments

Re: Docket FSIS-2023-0028

The American Pastured Poultry Association (APPPA) board and membership have spent many hours reading and discussing this Proposed Rule. APPPA counts more than a thousand members who participate in the production and processing of small-scale poultry. A large majority of the membership actively participates in poultry slaughter, be it on-farm, or in state and USDA inspected facilities. Many of these on-farm slaughter operations later become small, inspected facilities. The future of the Salmonella Framework and any adulterants declared in poultry is thus of deep concern to our members. After conducting several focus groups, we have the following concerns and have proposed solutions.

First Issue: FSIS has not done due diligence in the investigation of the true cost for very low volume (VLV) plants to implement the new Salmonella framework.

  1. FSIS has not given an accurate account of the true costs to VLV plants as is required by law, especially since the estimates in the proposal were made before determining at what frequency these Salmonella tests would be performed.
  2. FSIS has grossly underestimated the losses to VLV plants by undervaluing the poultry they typically produce. Many VLV plants slaughter and process free range and pastured poultry, which is sold for a price several times the commodity price for poultry used in the estimate.
  3. FSIS has not taken into account that the most VLV plants lack access to cooking facilities (either in-plant or outside of plant) to render poultry previously declared “adulterated” with Salmonella by FSIS wholesome by turning it into a cooked product, and the resulting loss of product under this framework.
  4. FSIS has not taken into account the costs that VLV plants would need to incur in order to construct these cooking facilities, purchase equipment to do these activities, and develop and implement entirely new HACCP category programs for cooked products.
  5. FSIS has significantly expanded the scope of the Salmonella testing program by removing the current exemption for those plants producing under 1000 pounds a day of product. The agency does not address the full costs associated with bringing these plants within the Salmonella testing regime.

Second Issue: FSIS has not taken into account the effect the Salmonella Framework would have on fee-for-service poultry slaughter establishments.

  1. FSIS has not considered that requiring poultry to be held pending test results would force customers to return another day to pick up their poultry, instead of dropping off and returning home the same day. As many as two-thirds of these customers can live more than an hour away from the plant, and some over four hours away.
  2. FSIS has not considered that poultry being tested and declared “adulterated” under the new framework may come from a flock that was destined for the customer’s own use. The customer would be taking a great financial loss as the poultry is condemned. Even though the customer may be more than willing to accept poultry with Salmonella, as they know to properly cook their own poultry when home. The proposal would not allow “adulterated product” to leave the establishment under threat of recall or further enforcement actions. This violates the private property rights of these individuals. FSIS is only tasked with the regulation of food going into commerce, not into private freezers.
  3. FSIS has not considered that some VLV plants that do fee-for-service slaughter for customers will need to increase their insurance coverage against the possibility of customers holding the VSV plant liable if the customer’s poultry is declared adulterated and condemned.
  4. FSIS has not considered that some VLV plants, if faced with the possibility of liability for their customer’s loss of income, will choose not to continue fee-for-service slaughter, and therefore decrease further the number of VLV plants that are available to serve their communities. The small number of such plants is already a barrier for both farmers and consumers, and the proposed framework thus undermines the goal to diversify and expand meat and poultry processing options in our country.

Third Issue: FSIS has not taken into account the lack of consistency and accessibility of laboratory services to VSV plants that tend to be in more rural settings.

  1. The samples for the enumerated Salmonella testing under the new framework cannot be guaranteed to be protected from temperature damage during transport to the FSIS testing facilities. Most VLV plants in rural areas of the country must rely on overnight delivery of their samples. But even with overnight shipping the records in some plants show that the test samples have taken two days for delivery to the USDA testing facilities. Currently, FSIS does not require its testing facilities to document the temperature of the samples upon arrival.
  2. The broiler breeder industry is consolidated into only a very few companies. If VLV plants or their customers are concerned that the testing results reflect issues with their current chick supplier they would have limited choices for a new supplier.

Fourth Issue: FSIS has a track record of starting a program, such as the creation of the Salmonella Performance Standards in 1996, and then changing the program when FSIS does not see the results it expects. Using the Salmonella Performance Standards as an example, FSIS has changed aspects of this program many times, without an opportunity for public comment, and many times without even a public announcement. VLV plants are concerned that this will be repeated with the new Salmonella Framework. Several very small volume plants that had planned to spend their limited resources to expand their facilities are now hesitant to do so with the prospects of these potential changing goal posts:

  1. Changes of which organisms that would be selected for testing
  2. Changes in technology to increase the sensitivity of the testing
  3. Changes in testing frequency
  4. Changes in sample volume to be taken
  5. Changes in testing solution chemistry
  6. Changes in enrichment methods
  7. Changes in which poultry products would be tested
  8. Denying plants access to the remainder of the FSIS testing solution to send off for comparative testing

Fifth Issue: The poultry industry has likely come to the end of Pareto’s 80/20 Principle as it concerns Salmonella.

  1. FSIS has admitted that “While the results of FSIS’ Salmonella verification sampling show that the current prevalence-based performance standards approach has been effective in reducing the proportion of poultry products contaminated with Salmonella, these measures have yet to have an observable impact on human illness rates.” (Executive Summary of the Salmonella Framework)
  2. A study titled “Trends in reported illnesses due to poultry and non-poultry associated Salmonella serotypes” (Powell, M.R. 2003) demonstrated that there is a declining trend in illness due to the poultry-associated serotypes and increasing trends in illness due to Salmonella serotypes not associated with poultry.
  3. FSIS conducted an exploratory program on Salmonella and examined the profile of young chicken carcasses from the rehang step to the end of the slaughter process or the post chill step. The study found that Salmonella decreased significantly from rehang to post chill, with reduction rates of 92%, and “When present, Salmonella was most often found at low levels.” (FSIS Poultry Exploratory Sampling Program Report). Yet this new framework signals that FSIS wants to go after the last small amount of Salmonella, which will require extensive effort and expense by the poultry industry for a potentially unattainable result. This goal would be especially hard to achieve for VLV plants, as there are many variables outside of their control in their fee-for-service customers, with differences in feed, living conditions, climates, weather and many others.

Sixth Issue: FSIS has grossly under-calculated the effect on the poultry industry if very small processors close or choose not to expand their business due to the Salmonella Framework program.

  1. According to APPPA’s data, there are only 30 or so remaining small USDA inspected poultry processors nationwide who offer fee-for-service slaughter. Results from APPPA’s focus groups on this issue have revealed that, should this Rule be implemented as proposed, 40% of the existing fee-for-service plants would likely close or cease their fee-for-service operations. This amounts to an estimated 9 million pounds of poultry product annually lost from commerce. Since the fee-for-service plants are scattered around the nation, the farmers cannot realistically switch to another processor if their current facility closes. Most poultry processed at these plants are destined for niche and direct to consumer markets, so APPA’s best estimate of the value of the poultry is $6 per pound. This is a total of $54 million loss to the poultry Industry in just one year. This cost alone is greater than USDA’s estimate of the high end of potential benefits from this rule ($39 million). USDA grossly underestimated the loss to the industry at $2,430,000, just one fifth of the probable real loss.
  2. Additionally, APPPA’s focus groups revealed that there are plants that are not expanding their lines or processing services until the impacts of this rule is known. USDA also failed to include the long term impact on their local economies and national food security, a significant issue in light of the consolidation and fragility of our food supply.

Seventh Issue: FSIS is hard-pressed to justify its attempt to declare Salmonella an adulterant using the criteria necessary in 21 USC (g).

  1. “21 USC 453(g) The term adulterated shall apply to any poultry product under one or more of the following circumstances: (1) If it bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health; but in case the substance is not an added substance, such article shall not be considered adulterated under this clause if the quantity of such substance in or on such article does not ordinarily render it injurious to health.” FSIS wants to declare Salmonella an adulterant on poultry but Salmonella has always been endemic to poultry. FSIS wants to justify Salmonella being an adulterant on poultry when it moves from one location of the bird to another. This is not “adding” a deleterious substance to the bird as it came in with the bird.  Salmonella cannot be a true adulterant as Salmonella does not render contaminated raw poultry products injurious to health because all Salmonella organisms are killed with proper cooking practices.
  2. FSIS has not explained, nor provided any scientific documentation, on why it wants to declare Salmonella an adulterant on all parts of the poultry carcass. Whether the bird is destined for whole, parts, or grind makes no difference under the proposal, since the carcass is tested prior to parting out, yet there is no evidence that whole birds have caused any significant human illness.
  3. If FSIS believes that Salmonella should be declared an adulterant on poultry, then FSIS would have to explain how Salmonella could be an adulterant on intact muscle meat that a consumer only needs to cook to kill the harmful bacteria. Can FSIS explain why a chicken breast and a steak can both be in a meat case, and a chicken breast can have a virulent serotype of Salmonella and the steak have E. coli 0157:J7, yet the chicken breast would be considered adulterated and the steak would not?

Eighth Issue: FSIS does not accept that Statistical Process Control (SPC) cannot be scientifically applied to VLV plants that do fee-for-service slaughter for other farms.

  1. Statistical Process Control, on which the HACCP program was originally based, was explained in “Improving Quality and Reducing Production Costs with Statistical Process Control,” a monograph prepared by Dr. John Surak, extension food scientist, in 1992. He later was asked by FSIS to write, “FSIS Policies and Guidance on Statistical Process Control Procedures in Slaughter Operations.” He explains that Specific Process Control (SPC) uses data to examine the steps of the entire process instead of inspecting only the final product. To achieve the state of process control, Dr. Surak declares, “The process system must be predictable and reliable…Unfortunately, SPC cannot be applied to many processes because of excess variability. The key to success, to both marketplace and regulatory compliance, is the reduction of variation.”
  2. Very large poultry operations that own their own processing facilities as well as supply the birds and feed for their contracted growers for their company are able to control many variables for their poultry. Fee-for-service plants, and other very small establishments, cannot control the wide variety of variables that are encountered on the small farms they service as they are outside of their jurisdiction. These variables include diverse weather conditions, microclimates, housing, growing practices, feed protocols, poultry sizes, water sources, predator stress, travel to the processor, and many others.

Ninth Issue: FSIS must acknowledge that the consumer has always had an obligation to properly cook raw poultry that would otherwise be unsafe to eat.

  1. A petition was submitted to FSIS that asserted that “FSIS is authorized to deem poultry products that contain virulent Salmonella strains and that contain pathogen levels above a set threshold to be adulterated under the PPIA because more virulent serotypes and certain levels of Salmonella are more likely to render poultry products injurious to health.” As Salmonella has always been ubiquitous to poultry, this is not a valid argument to charge the industry with a mandate to produce essentially sterile raw poultry.
  2. The consumer also has a responsibility to learn the basics of proper food preparation. In some foreign countries the youth are taught to dip a whole poultry carcass, fresh from the market, in boiling water for one minute before continuing with any further cooking preparation.

 

Suggested Solutions

  1. FSIS should retract the proposed rule and establish a stakeholder group that includes representatives from VLV plants to develop a more realistic assessment of the real-world logistics, costs, and benefits of additional Salmonella testing and declaring Salmonella an adulterant. The real cost of VLV plants to implement the proposed Salmonella Framework is many times higher than FSIS is currently projecting.
  2. FSIS testing frequency for establishments should be based on their pounds of product in commerce, not by arbitrarily set frequencies. This inequitable situation leads to VLV plants being tested at a rate 200 times that of large plants at a tiny fraction of their production volume. We suggest testing every plant at each millionth pound, or half million pounds. Testing by an arbitrary frequency instead of volume is not only unequitable, but subjects VLV plants to more costly and time-consuming testing than necessary. The VLV plants stand to lose substantial income with each test, due to both product holding requirements and potential loss of product.
  3. As much as 50% of poultry slaughtered in a very low volume plant is destined for home use. Poultry not destined for commerce should never be required to undergo the same level of inspection and testing as that entering commerce. FSIS was only tasked with regulating poultry entering commerce. FSIS should create an exemption for poultry not intended to enter commerce.
  4. Rather than extend more resources on further testing, when previous testing of raw chicken has failed to reduce human illness, FSIS should instead focus on public awareness campaigns for consumers that includes celebrities and influencers for consumer food safety education to reduce Salmonella sickness. The effectiveness of such public awareness campaigns have been proven in the past, such as the United States Forest Service’s “Smokey the Bear Campaign” to prevent forest fires. Consumers are waking up to the fact that their life choices are the main determinant of their health and would be more receptive to an updated message.
  5. As an alternative to a mandatory testing regime with high costs and questionable benefits, FSIS should establish a voluntary special program for a Salmonella-Free Product. This certification program could function much like the current quality stamps for grading beef or organic products. Companies that want to serve customers that are seeking safer poultry can supply products that are certified free of Salmonella strains of concern via a testing protocol similar to that suggested in the Proposed Rule.
  6. As Specific Process Control is not valid for processes that have excessive variability, it cannot be scientifically applied to the interpretation of the testing done by very small fee-for-service processors who serve the various farms in their communities. It should be sufficient that test results between two locations in the process show that the bacterial load of incoming poultry has been favorably reduced.

In Conclusion

Given the failure of the past testing programs to impact human health, the benefits of the new proposal are deeply in doubt. At the same time, the Agency has failed to properly consider the true costs of the proposal to very small plants, their customers, and the industry as a whole. This proposal runs counter to the goal of the past Administration to diversify our country’s meat and poultry processing capacity, and the goal of the new Administration to reduce wasteful government spending. As a representative of 1,050 poultry producers and processors, the American Pastured Poultry Producers calls for this proposal to be withdrawn.