California’s Abundant Agricultural Commodities Stay Gold

The lemons came cloaked as a widely publicized outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg traced to consumption of Foster Farms brand chicken.

On a sour note, according to the CDC, a total of 634 persons were infected with seven strains of the pathogen derived from said chicken products, reported from 29 states and Puerto Rico from March 1, 2013 to July 11, 2014. Most of the ill persons, 77 percent of them, were from California. Some 38 percent of the individuals that became ill were hospitalized. Fortunately, no deaths were reported.

Ira Brill, director of marketing and communications for Foster Farms, explains some key circumstances relevant to the outbreak.

“Salmonella control in poultry, as the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service long required it, was a first process measurement at the processing plant, meaning after slaughter but before birds are cut up,” Brill begins. “Under those guidelines, we typically had close to zero percent Salmonella and, as such, were listed as one of the top performing U.S. poultry companies.”

Founded in 1939, the vertically integrated Foster Farms specializes in fresh, all natural chicken products and currently operates 120 ranch complexes and three processing plants in California’s Central Valley. Most of its birds are processed and sold in California, including half a million birds processed weekly at a plant in Livingston, the company headquarters.

Additionally, Foster Farms works with some 35 contract family farm suppliers in Washington and Oregon, and oversees a processing plant for those Pacific Northwest birds in Kelso, Wash.

Starting in 2011, Brill continues, USDA started looking at Salmonella prevalence during the second process, namely after birds are cut up into parts, before they are packaged.

“USDA evaluated about 400 U.S. poultry plants during second process, and found Salmonella present about 25 percent of the time,” Brill relates. “And our plants were also at this level for the second process.”

In 2013 the CDC essentially broadened the definition of outbreak, Brill says. “Usually one strain of Salmonella is involved in an outbreak,” he points out. “Now seven strains were combined, totaling a relatively high level of Salmonella cases.” Consequently, on Oct. 7, 2013 the USDA issued a public health alert concerning Foster Farms products.

Brill says Foster Farms responded by looking intently at the second process level of Salmonella. “We put the full resources of the company in the effort,” Brill relates. “We invested $75 million to make changes to improve Salmonella control.

“We also formed an independent advisory board with industry experts,” Brill adds. “It wasn’t just window dressing; rather we included the best food safety minds in the country. We looked at Salmonella holistically, from breeding, to growing, to the abattoir, to processing. With the help of our advisory board members, we identified two of our 120 ranches in California with particularly high levels of Salmonella.”

Investigations revealed that Salmonella contamination was concentrated inside Foster Farms chicken houses (which are all cage-free), not necessarily the surrounding environment, including the soil and adjacent fields and crops. It was further determined that once Salmonella got established inside the houses, there was a greater likelihood that each new flock could be infected.

“As a result, we focused on cleaning the houses themselves, first by soaping the whole houses down, then disinfecting them,” Brill explains. “After that, we let farms sit vacant for about six weeks without any birds in them.”

Foster Farms also began reviewing the pedigrees of breeder stock to ensure the hens were Salmonella-free. The company also initiated spending more time washing equipment in processing plants. “Our plants close daily for a complete four- to six-hour sanitization process verified by USDA,” Brill says.