The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a new exploratory sampling program for antibiotic residues in cattle that are claimed to be raised without antibiotics. 

A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign concluded that, when sampling powdered infant formula for Cronobacter contamination, sampling with stratification may be more powerful than random sampling, and that taking more samples, even if smaller, increases the ability to detect contamination.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has updated its sampling program for cell-cultured meat and poultry products, providing new instructions to inspection personnel and enforcement officers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has notified constituents that establishments wishing to adopt the cloth sampling method (i.e., manual sampling device or continuous sampling device) for Shiga Toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) testing of raw beef products no longer require a “No Objection Letter” (NOL) from FSIS.

bioMérieux’s new GENE-UP® ENVIROPRO™ detects both Salmonella and Listeria from environmental swabbing, including PCR confirmation.

A pervasive trend exists to take larger and more frequent samples to address microbial contamination. This trend has touched almonds and is expected to hit other nut products, which can be considered for aggregated sampling as a solution.

QualiTru Sampling Systems has introduced the first of three new products planned for 2023—the new TruStream7 Adjustable Tanker Port with Security Lid, specifically designed for sampling in dairy and other liquid food tanker trucks.

Food safety sampling and testing strategies must seek ways to adapt food safety plans that reflect the reality of contamination to improve hazard detection and ultimately help ensure that food is safe for consumers. One solution is to maximize the power of sampling plans to detect target hazards present at explicitly defined risk levels—prevalence, level, and/or distribution. This would allow food safety professionals to better manage risk in their specific system.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) will host a virtual open house featuring live demonstrations and presentations on Salmonella sampling and quantification, whole genome sequencing, agency technology, and the National Residue Program.

Agilent and METTLER TOLEDO have announced an integrated solution that features the automatic, seamless transfer of weighing results and associated metadata from METTLER TOLEDO LabX™ Balance software to Agilent OpenLab software.