Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy organization that also works closely with and proactively for the meat and poultry inspectors’ bargaining unit recently released a list of 41 poultry slaughter and processing plants that have opted for the New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) that allows plant employees to inspect carcasses for blemishes, feathers and broken bones and Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors to perform more off-line inspections in an attempt to lower contamination rates.

It also reduces the number of union members in NPIS plants.

The 41 number is about double the number of plants that were in the former HIMP model of inspection.

The only way the list, that was acquired under the Freedom Of Information Act, commonly referred to as FOIA in D.C., can be useful is for a shopper to bring the list of establishment numbers and check the package label.

Food and Water Watch, by the way, is a frequent user and abuser of the FOIA process. As an example they FOIA’ed FSIS for my travel schedule for the last three months of my tenure there. All they had to do was ask me. My travel was not a secret. But instead they chose to waste tax payers’ dollars with a FOIA.And I think this most recent FOIA was another waste of tax payer dollars that were budgeted to make our food safer.

Why do I think this is a waste? The answer is quite simple. We have a serious problem with salmonella and campylobacter contamination in poultry, especially chicken, in this country using both conventional inspection and the NPIS.

Proper handling and cooking are the only way to keep your family safe. The test results for contamination are basically the same for the two methods of inspection. Recent studies have shown that about 25 percent of chicken parts are contaminated with salmonella, and almost one-half of ground chicken is contaminated.

Whole chicken carcasses are about one-fourth the rate for contamination with salmonella when compared to parts, but most consumers buy parts, not carcasses.

USDA has set a new standard for parts contamination of 15 percent and the National Chicken Council has said that is doable.

Foster Farms had a parts contamination rate of 24 percent when the large outbreak on the West Coast occurred. Through active intervention they lowered that rate to 5 percent.

USDA is listing the test results of parts for Salmonella contamination at every chicken plant in the United States and they also list plants that fail to meet the standard of 7.5 percent for contamination of carcasses.

It seems to me that anyone worrying about the safety of the chicken they purchase simply should look at the USDA’s test results and not be concerned about the inspection methods used.

Those test results for contamination rates are the real test of quality and safety, not the results of a FOIA demand.

Don’t be chicken; eat more poultry

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