Assessing the Risk of Salmonellosis from Consumption of Conventionally and Alternatively Produced Broiler Meat Prepared In-Home in the United States

Salmonella has long presented a major problem for the food safety of broiler meat. As the popularity of alternatively produced (e.g. organic) broiler meat increases, an understanding of the food safety risks associated with these types of products is needed. The purpose of this study was to develop a retail-to-consumption quantitative microbial risk assessment model that could be used to estimate the differences in risk of salmonellosis acquired from the consumption of conventionally and alternatively produced broiler meat in the United States annually. Data were extracted and used to define distributions that could be used to estimate Salmonella growth during retail storage, transportation, and home storage, as well as concentration changes during preparation and due to cross-contamination. A Monte Carlo simulation with 100,000 iterations was performed to estimate the risk of infection per serving and total number of infections in the United States annually from both meat types. Sensitivity analyses were performed to determine the factors that were highly correlated with increased risk of salmonellosis. Conventionally produced chicken meat was estimated to have a median risk of infection per serving of 6.4 $\times$ 10⁻⁸ and cause an average of approximately 3,880,000 infections annually compared with a median risk of infection per serving of 7.7 $\times$ 10⁻⁸ and average of approximately 641,000 estimated infections for alternatively produced chicken. The sensitivity analysis identified cross-contamination of hands during meal preparation as the most important factor linked to risk. The ‘what-if’ scenario analysis estimated that using antimicrobial soap during hand washing after handling raw chicken can reduce the risk considerably. The developed risk assessment model provides information on the public health risk of conventionally and alternatively produced broiler meat. These results will be useful in determining the key intervention strategies to mitigate the food safety risks associated with the consumption of contaminated chicken products.