Strategies to control Salmonella in the broiler production chain

Abstract

Broiler meat is one of the sources of Salmonella contamination of humans. Concerns about food safety have prompted the poultry industry and governments to introduce control plans to combat Salmonella. This has been strengthened by legislation, as is the case in the EU, where targets have been set forcing member states to decrease Salmonella prevalence in poultry flocks. Strategies to prevent transmission of Salmonella to humans should focus on the whole production chain of broiler meat and on the subsequent storage and handling of meat, thus from farm to fork. In the primary production phase, both hygienic measures and general farm management strategies are important. These management strategies should include in-feed Salmonella control and product administration. A wide range of feed additives is currently available for that purpose. Hygienic measures and logistic slaughter are tools to reduce the Salmonella contamination in the slaughterhouse. At retail and in the consumer's kitchen, care needs to be taken of product storage and handling to avoid contamination and bacterial growth. The numbers of contaminated Salmonella broiler flocks will most likely decrease in the future due to the established action plans, but complete eradication of Salmonella is unrealistic. The main issue is, however, to keep the flock prevalence, the within-flock prevalence and the numbers of bacteria in infected animals at such a low level, that contamination of meat, and thus transmission to humans, becomes a highly unlikely event. This clearly underlines the need for coordinated action of governments and poultry-related industries (including feed industry and slaughterhouses), at all stages of the production chain

Effects of organic acid supplementation on antioxidant capacity and immune responses of broilers challenged orally with <i>Salmonella enterica</i> subsp. <i>enterica Typhimurium</i>

“…Salmonella Typhimurium is an enteric bacterium that can colonize chickens, and is a serovar that is known to cause salmonellosis in broiler chickens (Ribeiro et al, 2007;Van Immerseel et al, 2009). Growth performance parameters in broilers may be regarded as indication of the severity of S. Typhimurium infection.…”

Distribution ofSalmonellaserovars and antimicrobial susceptibility ofSalmonellaEnteritidis from poultry in Zimbabwe

“…The increased prevalence of S. Enteritidis in poultry has been associated with a concomitant global pandemic of human food poisoning due to increased demand for poultry, eggs and egg-based products (Rodriguez et al, 1990). However, the prevalence of S. Enteritidis in some developed countries, in both poultry and humans, has been recently declining, probably due to vaccination of poultry flocks and implementation of other control measures (Van Immerseel et al, 2009).…”

Food safety management system performance in the lamb chain

“…From a chain perspective, a good food safety output in the meat chain should be realised early in the chain and should be maintained along the whole chain up to the moment of consumption (Bertrand et al, 2010;Magras, Laroche, & Fosse, 2009;Van Immerseel et al, 2009). However, our diagnosis data shows that the overall FS output of the implemented FSMS at the slaughterhouses and processor seems unsatisfactory (being at 1e2, 2), although at the butcher shops level the food safety output of the implemented FSMS is moderate-good (overall score 2e3) (Table 1).…”