AMSA Announces Symposium Speakers on New Approaches to Reducing Salmonellosis Across the Food Industry

Kearney, MO. May 18, 2022 – The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) is pleased to announce Dr. Mohammad Koohmaraie, Dr. Emilio Esteban, Dr. Barb Masters, Dr. Aaron Asmus, Brian McFarlane, and Anika Bansalas the featured speakers in the symposium entitled “New Approaches to Reducing Salmonellosis Across the Food Industry” on Tuesday, June 14, 2022, during the 75th AMSA Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC). Arm & Hammer Animal and Food Production is the sponsor for this session. ?

Mohammad Koohmaraie, Ph.D., President of the Meat Division at IEH Laboratories,?begins this session speaking about “Background of Salmonella Current Situation.” The objective of this presentation is to cover the role of Salmonella in foodborne illness, progress or lack of it for reducing the Salmonella burden, food sources of Salmonella infection, and conclude with a discussion on what it takes to reduce Salmonella burden.

Emilio Esteban, Ph.D., Chief Scientist at USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, follows with a presentation on “FSIS New Regulatory Approaches to Address Salmonella.” Over the past 25 years, there have been significant reductions in the proportion of chicken contaminated with Salmonella as FSIS has continued to tighten the criteria for chicken establishments to control this pathogen. Even though the industry continues to implement ways to control Salmonella and reduce the percentage of chicken contaminated with Salmonella to meet FSIS standards and the proportion of contaminated chickens has decreased, there has not been a corresponding reduction in human Salmonella infections attributed to chicken. During this presentation we will discuss several initiatives that are underway to incorporate the latest science, data, and laboratory technology into FSIS’s decision-making to identify ways to control Salmonella in poultry that drive down foodborne illness.?

Barb Masters, Ph.D., Vice President of Regulatory Policy, Food and Agriculture at Tyson Foods, Inc., will speak over “New Approaches to Address Salmonella in Poultry.” ?FSIS has acknowledged that the industry has substantially reduced the prevalence of Salmonella in their products. FSIS is now challenging the industry to consider new approaches to reduce the public health burden related to Salmonellosis. This presentation will discuss one approach of focusing on a higher-risk product and utilizing limits testing and specific labeling to meet the Agency’s challenge.

The next speaker in this session will be Aaron Asmus, Ph.D., Director of Lab Services and Refrigerated Foods Product Development?at Hormel Foods Corporation, who will address “New Approaches to Address Salmonella in Pork.” Salmonella remains a foodborne pathogen of concern in both fresh meat and poultry. While many current interventions and processing strategies to manage Salmonella are effective across species, processors should consider several nuances to Salmonella reduction in fresh pork. This presentation will assess current intervention and management strategies to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella in fresh pork, research gaps that remain, and how new approaches might be used to further assess and understand the microbial ecology of fresh pork and plant environments.

Following will be Brian McFarlane, Head of Technical Services for JBS USA Food Company, speaking about “New Approaches to Address Salmonella in Beef.” ?Contrary to other pathogens in the meat industry, Salmonellosis causes substantial losses to both livestock and over 2 million illnesses in Americans annually. It is critical that the livestock and packing industries work together and closely align with academic and commercial scientific research to learn, develop, and implement best practices to minimize and control illnesses from Salmonella. Salmonella has created a unique situation for the livestock and beef industry. Even with proper animal husbandry practices and ideal slaughter and carcass handling, the internal presence of Salmonella can present itself in grinding systems and the resulting non-intact product could have Salmonella distributed throughout, resulting in potential risk to consumers.

Wapping up this session will be Anika Bansal, Vice President of Manufacturing Quality and Microbiology at Bonduelle Fresh Americas, speaking about “New Approaches to Address Salmonella in Produce.” Foodborne Salmonella is a leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States. Traditionally, most cases of Salmonellosis were thought to originate from meat and poultry products. However, an increasing number of Salmonellosis outbreaks are occurring as a result of contaminated produce. Contamination can occur at any point from the field to the table, and it's very difficult to determine accurately at which step in the supply chain, the produce may have come in contact with the pathogens. Given the open growing environments, there is a wide array of reasons that can lead to contamination. Thus, deployed mitigation strategies include multiple hurdle approach at various steps in the supply chain to reduce the risk of Salmonella contamination.

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AMSA is an organization recognized for its unmatched competence and commitment to attracting and developing meat industry leaders and providing science-based meat research and information. For more information, please visit www.meatscience.org/rmc or contact Deidrea Mabry at 1-800-517-AMSA ext. 12.?