New processing methods tested by the broiler industry, including the use of more disinfectant, have reduced levels of salmonella and other illness-causing bacteria on raw chicken, officials said Friday.
A spokesman for the Agriculture Department, which approved the study's methods, said the preliminary data were promising. But a consumer advocate dismissed the study as a ploy by the industry to avoid an effective sanitation program in poultry plants.The tests, conducted in five poultry plants, involved new scalding equipment, new bird washing procedures, and automatic chlorination at several additional points in processing.
On chicken carcasses containing salmonella, the levels were reduced by an average of 70 percent during the tests, said Richard H. Forsythe, a professor at the University of Arkansas and coordinator of the federally authorized Food Safety Consortium, the research group which analyzed the test results.
The industry's study also showed that before the changes, about 40 percent of carcasses contained salmonella. The new processing techniques lowered that rate to 25 percent. USDA studies have shown that about 35 percent of carcasses contain salmonella.
Jim Greene, a spokesman for USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the agency had not seen the study's results, other than a press release.
But based on that information, "the data shows a lot of promise. Anytime you can reduce salmonella and other food-borne pathogens on raw meat it's promising," Greene said.
Greene said that after the changes were adopted, there was less than one salmonella organism per bird, while the average infectious dose range is 100 to 1,000 organisms per bird.
But Rod Leonard, executive director of the Community Nutrition Institute, an advocacy group on food policy, said federal and academic studies have found that more disinfectant does not produce cleaner, safer poultry.
He said the additional chlorine could actually result in significant losses in quality and a product with different kinds of health risks.
"The industry knows what it has to do, which is to improve the sanitation levels in the plants," Leonard said. "They have to develop an industry capable of producing a wholesome product."
Salmonella is present in almost any raw food of animal origin. Cooking kills the bacteria, but consumers can become ill by eating undercooked meat or spilling juices from raw meat onto foods that are eaten raw, like salad.