USDA tells producers to cut salmonella in certain frozen chicken products

Poultry producers will be required to bring salmonella bacteria in certain chicken products to very low levels to help prevent food poisoning under a final rule issued Friday by U.S. agriculture officials.

When the regulation takes effect in 2025, salmonella will be considered an adulterant — a contaminant that can cause foodborne illness — when it is detected above certain levels in frozen breaded and stuffed raw chicken products. That would include things like frozen chicken cordon bleu and chicken Kiev dishes that appear to be fully cooked but are only heat-treated to set the batter or coating.

It's the first time the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared salmonella an adulterant in raw poultry in the same way that certain E. coli bacteria are regarded as contaminants that must be kept out of raw ground beef sold in grocery stores, said Sandra Eskin, a USDA food safety official.

The new rule also means that if a product exceeds the allowed level of salmonella, it can't be sold and is subject to recall, Eskin said.

Salmonella poisoning accounts for more than 1.3 million infections and about 420 deaths each year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Food is the source of most of those illnesses.

The breaded and stuffed raw chicken products have been associated with at least 14 salmonella outbreaks and at least 200 illnesses since 1998, CDC statistics show. A 2021 outbreak caused at least three dozen illnesses in 11 states and sent 12 people to the hospital.

Despite changes to labels emphasizing that the products needed to be thoroughly cooked, consumers continued to fall ill, Eskin said.

Addressing a narrow category of poultry products lays the foundation for a new framework to regulate salmonella more broadly now being considered by federal officials, said Mike Taylor, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official.

Among other things, the proposal calls for greater testing for salmonella in poultry entering a processing plant, stricter monitoring during production and targeting three types of salmonella that cause onethird of all illnesses.