NCC statement in response to FSIS announcing its plans to declare Salmonella an adulterant in frozen, raw, breaded, stuffed, chicken products.

The National Chicken Council today released the following statement in response to FSIS announcing its plans to declare Salmonella an adulterant in frozen, raw, breaded, stuffed, chicken products. Attributable to Ashley Peterson, Ph.D., senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs.

“As these products often appear ready to eat, but contain raw chicken, we recognize their nature raises special considerations that merit additional attention. The National Chicken Council (NCC) and our member companies have invested millions of dollars and have worked for more than a decade to develop and refine best practices for these products to reduce Salmonella and protect public health. These efforts have been paying off, demonstrated by a significant decline in illness over the past seven years.

“NCC is concerned about the precedent set by this abrupt shift in longstanding policy, made without supporting data, for a product category that has been associated with a single outbreak since 2015. It has the potential to shutter processing plants, cost jobs, and take safe food and convenient products off shelves. We’re equally concerned that this announcement was not science-based or data-driven. Read more