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In 2000, the Consumer Goods Forum established the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) to increase the safety of the world's food supply and to harmonize food safety regulations worldwide. In 2013, a university research team in conjunction with Diversey Consulting (Sealed Air), the Consumer Goods Forum, and officers of GFSI solicited input from more than 15,000 GFSI-certified food producers worldwide to determine whether GFSI certification had lived up to these expectations. A total of 828 usable questionnaires were analyzed, representing about 2,300 food manufacturing facilities and food suppliers in 21 countries, mainly across Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. Nearly 90% of these certified suppliers perceived GFSI as being beneficial for addressing their food safety concerns, and respondents were eight times more likely to repeat the certification process knowing what it entailed. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of these food manufacturers would choose to go through the certification process again even if certification were not required by one of their current retail customers. Important drivers for becoming GFSI certified included continuing to do business with an existing customer, starting to do business with new customer, reducing the number of third-party food safety audits, and continuing improvement of their food safety program. Although 50% or fewer respondents stated that they saw actual increases in sales, customers, suppliers, or employees, significantly more companies agreed than disagreed that there was an increase in these key performance indicators in the year following GFSI certification. A majority of respondents (81%) agreed that there was a substantial investment in staff time since certification, and 50% agreed there was a significant capital investment. This survey is the largest and most representative of global food manufacturers conducted to date.

The effects of supplementation of broiler diets with organic acids on live performance and microbiological parameters were evaluated in a series of experiments. In three trials lactic acid (LA) (0.25 to 2.00%) or fumaric acid (PA) (0.5 to 2.00%), and in two trials a formic/propionic acid blend (PP) (.125 to 1.00%) or citric acid (CA) (0.25 to 2.00%) was continually fed to broilers that were inoculated via the drinking water with 10 8 to 10 9 CPU/ml nalidixic acid-resistant Salmonella typhimurium (NAL-SAL) on days 2, 7, and 14. Cecal pH, weight and percentage (on a live-weight basis) were measured at 41 days of age. Performance variables were measured at 21 and 42 days. At 42 days birds were processed and the ceca and prechill carcasses were evaluated for incidence and levels of NAL-SAL. LA, FA, and CA had no adverse effects on live bird performance. The PP blend gave inconsistent results on body weight and feed consumption; the blend did not alter feed conversion or mortality. Neither LA nor FA affected cecal pH; however, the pH was altered when the PP blend or CA was fed. None of the acids affected cecal weight or percentage. None of the acids consistently reduced levels of NAL-SAL in the ceca or on the prechill carcasses. The results from this study and numerous others suggest that feeding organic acids to broilers is not a reliable means of controlling cecal colonization or carcass contamination by Salmonella. The results also suggest that reductions in cecal colonization by pathogens such as Salmonella do not necessarily result in processed carcasses that are contaminated to a lesser degree

Contamination of Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat poultry products poses potential risk of listeriosis to the public. To control the level of Listeria contamination, attention has been focused on the postpackage pasteurization of fully cooked poultry products. In this study, we sought to develop a model to predict the thermal inactivation of L. monocytogenes in chicken drumettes during postpackage hot water pasteurization. Fully cooked chicken drumettes were inoculated with Listeria innocua as a surrogate microorganism for Listeria monocytogenes, vacuum packaged, and treated in hot water baths at 60, 70, 80, and 90°C for different heating times. Experimental results showed that a 7-log CFU/g reduction of L. innocua occurred at 54, 28, 18, and 10 min at 60, 70, 80, and 90°C, respectively. The Weibull model was used to fit the survival curves of L. innocua at each heating temperature. The root mean square errors and residual plots indicated good agreements between the predicted and observed values. The predictive model was further validated by predicting a new data set generated in the pilot-plant tests. Model performance was evaluated by the acceptable prediction zone method, and the results indicated that the percentages of acceptable prediction errors were 100, 100, 82.4, and 87.5% at 60, 70, 80 and 90°C, respectively, which were all greater than the threshold acceptable value of 70%, indicating good performance of the model. The developed predictive model can be used as a tool to predict thermal inactivation behaviors of L. monocytogenes in ready-to-eat chicken drumettes products.