Salmonella in Poultry Meat Production

Abstract

Salmonella is a major threat to human public health since it causes several foodborne outbreaks in the USA and worldwide. Poultry harbor Salmonella in their gastrointestinal tract and excrete the pathogen through the feces contaminating the environment. In addition, there are several sources of the pathogen at the farms and processing facilities. Until humans contract the infection by consuming contaminated poultry products, Salmonella must overcome several hurdles, including methods of control applied at the farm and processing facilities. Even after the adoption of intervention techniques at multiple levels, Salmonella still contaminates the poultry meat supply. In this chapter, we discuss Salmonella as a major pathogen transmitted through live poultry and poultry meat, a brief overview of different poultry-associated Salmonella serovars, including the familiar and the emerging, and various sources of contamination on farm and processing facilities. This information will help the industry to design and/or revisit the plans before appropriate intervention strategies are applied to control Salmonella in the poultry farms and processing environment in a highly automated vertically integrated production system.