Dive Brief:
- The USDA has updated its food safety inspection regimen by adding a new technology, bioMérieux TEMPO® methodology, to its Microbiology Laboratory Guidebook, which outlines the best standard tests and procedures for ensuring the country's food supply is safe for consumption.
- According to a press release, the methodology is "a highly sensitive and automated system that enumerates microbiological contaminants in the food supply, including E. coli and a variety of other bacteria, yeasts and molds that contaminate beef, chicken and pork."
- By using this methodology to automate certain labor-intensive raw meat and poultry screens, the USDA "can save analysis time, reduce their operational costs, eliminate the need for manual plate counting, and dedicate more resources to testing pathogens of importance to public health," says the press release.
Dive Insight:
USDA scientists have also developed a vaccine that can save chickens from two infectious poultry diseases, which "are two of the most economically important" disease strains in the poultry industry, reports AgWeek. The diseases affects domestic and commercial poultry in addition to some wild birds and bring about sickness and death.