✔Food safety agencies must improve the accuracy and quality of human disease attribution data.
✔Governmental agencies need to expedite the approval of new technologies to reduce foodborne pathogens. Preservation of existing
poultry health drugs and the approval of new ones are essential,
because poultry health has a major impact on foodborne pathogens
in ;ocks.
✔Consumers need to be better educated about their role in the food
safety of the poultry products they purchase. Industry needs to
continue to improve packaging and labeling to reduce the risk of
cross contamination and improve awareness of proper handling
and preparation.
✔More collaboration in food safety efforts is needed between industry,
regulators and academia. Government regulations need to encourage
positive approaches and investment.
The industry may be at a juncture where involving consumers
in the food safety effort is increasingly cost-effective. P;zer’s Jon
Schaeffer explained, “As the levels of foodborne pathogens in poultry
are reduced to very low levels with diminishing returns from efforts
to further reduce those pathogens, educating consumers about safe
food handling practices may offer the greatest reward for the industry’s
food safety effort.”
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Communicate about food safety
The roundtable members emphasized the importance of communication along the production and supply chain and including
consumers.
“The better that the industry tells the story of what it is accomplishing in food safety the more it instills con;dence throughout
the value chain,” said Brian Coan of Chick-;l-A.
P;zer’s director of technical services, Dr. Chris Williams,
addressed the dual nature of the industry’s food safety
message: “Communication with the public about the food
safety of poultry is tremendously important. The industry
needs to ;nd ways
to effectively com-
municate a good
news/bad news
message about the
food safety of poul-
try from a scienti;c
basis.”
Bruce Stewart-
Brown zeroed in on the industry’s messaging dilemma by saying, “The industry has to ;gure out how to talk about non-perfect
messages. We can’t talk about a sterile piece of chicken on an
all-the-time, every-time basis, even though the industry is focused
on that goal. We have to ;nd ways to talk about the progress that
the industry is making and have that come across the way it is
in real life – that the people in the industry are dedicated to this
aspect of food safety.”
“The industry needs to
find ways to communicate a good news/bad
news message about the
food safety of poultry
from a scientific basis.”
Chris Williams, Pfizer
The human dimension of food safety
Mike Blair, senior director of nutritional services for
Pilgrim’s, talked more about the human dimension of food
safety. “When it comes to consumer con;dence, I work in the
live-production part of the poultry business, but I am a consumer. When I go home
from work and go
to the grocery store
with my wife and
kids, it is important
to my family that
we have produced a
safe product for our
customers, because
I might be buying that product that evening.
“The food safety chain is only as strong as its weakest link,”
he continued, “and we are always working to identify those
weakest links. It is a process of continual improvement.”
He also issued a ;nal challenge: “Food safety involves
physical, chemical and microbial components. We want to
keep our eyes on all of those aspects so that we are not caught
unprepared in any area.” ■
“The food safety chain
is only as strong as its
weakest link, and we
are always working to
identify those weakest
links.”
Mike Blair, Pilgrim’s
