January 16, 2026 – At a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) hearing on Wednesday, food safety advocates and meat industry representatives testified in favor of two very different approaches to regulating salmonella in poultry products.

The USDA planned the hearing after it withdrew Biden-era product standards that would have—for the first time—declared salmonella an “adulterant,” giving the agency the ability to stop contaminated poultry products from being sold. The agency also put on hold a separate Biden-era rule that would have done the same for one category of chicken products considered especially risky for consumers.

At the hearing, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said she made those changes because the agency was fielding concerns around “feasibility, burden, and whether the approach would actually achieve the outcomes the American people deserve.” The goal of the hearing, she said, was to land on solutions that would protect consumers “while rejecting regulatory overreach.”

Meat industry representatives from the Meat Institute, National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation, and National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) testified in favor of the withdrawal of the stricter regulations and cited various concerns such as small processing plants not being able to meet the standards. “NPPC cautions against any use of the word adulterated,” said Ashley Johnson, director of food policy at NPPC. “Salmonella is a naturally occurring substance in food.”

On the other side, food safety experts and advocates from organizations including Consumer Reports and the Center for Science in the Public Interest objected. They said declaring salmonella an adulterant is necessary to reduce the risk of illness for consumers and called on the agency to undo the rollbacks.

In November, Farm Forward released a report showing major poultry brands including Perdue, Butterball, and Costco operate processing plants that routinely violate existing salmonella standards without consequence. (Link to this post.)

The post After Rolling Back Regulations, USDA Holds Hearing on Salmonella appeared first on Civil Eats.

From Civil Eats via This RSS Feed.