Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 2/2/17

 It’s no longer a matter of if but when the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will declare some salmonella strains as an adulterant in meat and poultry products, Mark Dopp, the general counsel and senior vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs for the North American Meat Institute, told attendees here at the International Production and Processing Expo.

Aside from the agency’s general, increasing focus on salmonella in beef, pork and poultry, there are other signals that have Dopp drawing that conclusion.

Industry members applauded when FSIS’s chief policy writer Dan Engeljohn rejected a petition by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) asking the agency to declare four strains of antibiotic-resistant salmonella as adulterants in ground meats and poultry.

However, CSPI has filed an amended petition, asking the agency to expand relief in the form of a declaration covering all meat and poultry products.

“Any declaration wouldn't apply to all serovars, just a select few, perhaps those in the CSPI petition, perhaps not all of them,” he later explained.

Dopp also noted in one of his presentation slides that an FSIS official commented last year that salmonella is a “hazard likely to occur” in beef products likely to be ground or non-intact.

In an interview last fall with Meatingplace, Engeljohn was quoted directly as saying salmonella is “a food safety hazard that we think is reasonably likely to occur” in those products.

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