Poultry food safety and foodborne illness

Poultry production involves several stages before poultry products reach consumers, including the rearing of these birds from hatch to peak performance and the subsequent harvesting and processing of broilers and eggs. Therefore, converting broilers to meat products requires a number of processing steps prior to retail. As such, food safety is an important consideration at all phases of poultry meat and egg production. The most prevalent foodborne pathogens of public health concern in commercial poultry production are Salmonella and Campylobacter . Intervention strategies to limit these foodborne pathogens in poultry are applied throughout the poultry production chain. Preharvest interventions can be used to prevent the initial colonization of foodborne pathogens in the poultry gastrointestinal tract or to decrease already established foodborne pathogens through the use of antimicrobial feed supplements. Postharvest interventions involve application of antimicrobials during processing, sanitation of the processing plant, and monitoring of critical control points to identify potential hazards. This review represents a description and overview of poultry food safety practices currently utilized in the United States.