The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) establishes microbiological performance standards for industry to achieve national food safety goals. USDA-FSIS also conducts regular testing of food products to and verify an establishment’s process and controls meet these standards.  Microbiological standards are product-specific and based on qualitative results (e.g., presence or absence of Salmonella spp.). In 2015, USDA-FSIS proposed new pathogen reduction performance standards for Salmonella and Campylobacter in chicken parts and comminuted poultry based on results of a quantitative risk assessment designed to achieve national food safety goals (Healthy People 2020) for reducing Salmonella- and Campylobacter-related illness in those products under its regulatory purview. USDA-FSIS verifies an establishment meets pathogen reduction performance standards through federal qualitative microbiological analysis of product samples.      

This symposium discusses prevalence-based microbiological performance standards as well as semi-quantitative criterion developed to control Salmonella contamination in meat and poultry and their impact in public health.  It will present FSIS’s quantitative risk assessment used to inform the development of the current microbiological performance standards. This symposium will also explore two risk assessments conducted, using both public and private sector data, to evaluate the public health impact of industry adoption of a semi-quantitative operational microbiological performance criterion for Salmonella.

Presentations