Could Salmonella be Declared a Food Adulterant?

New moves have been launched in the US to have four strains of Salmonella declared an adulterant on meat products.

The renewed efforts come from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) which has refiled a petition with the USDA.

The USDA turned down an original petition filed in 2011 in July this year.

But the CSPI has renewed its efforts following two outbreaks of salmonella poisoning that had a big impact across the US this year.

The CSPI said that antibiotic resistant strains of salmonella should be viewed in the same way as E.Coli, which the USDA has declared an adulterant.

CSPI said the USDA should be testing for antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella to keep contaminated foods out of grocery stores — just as it now can do for the most dangerous strains of E. coli.

Despite recent concerns over food safety issues and food fraud, price still dominated the minds of the European consumer when making a choice to buy food.

Speaking at the European poultry producers and exporters association (AVEC) conference in Marseilles, Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, director of retail insights for ACNielsen Europe said consumer perceptions can differ widely from reality.

He said that the factor that was nearest the heart of consumers in the purchases of consumer goods is the price - when the price goes up, the volume purchased trends downwards.

Peter van Horne from the agricultural economics unit (LEI) and Wageningen University showed that the burden of additional EU regulations on the environment, animal welfare and food safety add between five and eight per cent to the cost of producing broilers in the EU.

In Russia, since the introduction of the ban on imports of pork from the EU because of the discovery of the disease in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, and the Russian disagreement with the European Commission over effective biosecurity measures, veterinary officials have reported an increase in the number of cases of attempts to smuggle meat into the country.

The smugglers are using suitcases and other luggage and the veterinary officials at Rosselkhoznador say that the attempts to cross the border are increasing the risk of the spread of African swine fever.

Last month border veterinary control points reported 30 incidents of smuggling and detained more than five tonnes of pig meat – excluding other pig meat products.