Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Tune in every Tuesday for a brand new episode of Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast. Join Francine L. Shaw, the savvy CEO of Savvy Food Safety, and Matthew Regusci, compliance connoisseur and founder of Fostering Compliance, as they serve up the latest in food safety with a side of laughter.
Explore the ins and outs of food systems, responsible food practices, and food safety regulations. Stay informed about food safety awareness and the not-so-occasional food recall. Delve deep into the complexities of the food supply chain with our dynamic duo, who blend expert insights with a pinch of food safety humor. Whether you're knee-deep in the food safety industry or just passionate about what's on your plate, this podcast promises a fresh take on staying safe while eating well.
Expect candid conversations, personal anecdotes, and occasional guest appearances that spice up the discussion. Shaw and Regusci bring their combined decades of experience to the table, making each episode as informative as it is entertaining. From industry trends to must-know food safety news and regulations, they've got your back (and your lunch).
In essence, Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast is not just about imparting information; it's about fostering a culture of food safety. By shedding light on the intricacies of the food supply chain and the latest food safety news, it aims to promote awareness and encourage responsible food practices among consumers and industry professionals alike.
When it comes to food safety, knowledge is power, and a good laugh is the best seasoning. At the heart of every episode is one golden rule: Don't Eat Poop!
DEP E144(2)
===
Matt Regusci: [00:00:00] All chicken and safety eat would properly handled and cooked. True, but still there are over 400,000 people annually getting sick from salmonella from your product. So some sort of disconnect is happening between your product, having salmonella on it, and people properly handling and cooking their chicken, and they're doing it with 110 pounds a year.
intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes, toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l Shaw and Matt Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't eat poop.
Don't eat poop.
Matt Regusci: Hello, hello [00:01:00] Francine.
Francine L Shaw: Good morning, Matthew.
Matt Regusci: Alright, so we are talking about how the poultry industry is not happy because people are finding out there's actually salmonella in their meat.
And Bill Marler sent us this article, so while this is not on Food Safety News, it was sent to us from the guy who runs Food Safety News and obviously he's excited about this LA Times article that has quoted him multiple times.
Francine L Shaw: We are obviously, again, proud supporters of Food Safety News.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Francine L Shaw: Can we get paid for this?
Matt Regusci: Can we? I don't know.
Francine L Shaw: Bill, we'd be put on payroll.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. We are joking with him that we're gonna call him our boss. It'd be nice to have, I haven't had a boss in a very long time.
Francine L Shaw: Me neither. I think I'm due for a boss.
I, I'm tired of being the boss.
Matt Regusci: Okay, so this came from LA Times [00:02:00] on October 30th. The author of this is Susanne Rust.
Okay. There was a report that came out from Farm Forward, this organization. And this organization does something similar to what my team does at Ellipse Analytics with Clean Label Project. Okay? What they're doing is they're just buying products off the shelf and then testing it. Okay? Whenever that happens, what the industry will do right off the bat is talk about how unscientific our methods are of doing this.
Going and testing, grabbing product off the shelf, testing it in a ISO approved 17025 lab for the contaminants in there, and then posting the results are somehow unscientific. It just is what's in there.
So they're gonna talk about, in this article, the industry about how unscientific this report is and I understand this technique all the time because it's done [00:03:00] against me. So I just tell them, okay. How are my results wrong?
But this report from Farm Forward, which is fascinating, it was posted on October, 2025, shows that there's a lot of salmonella in chicken and turkey and poultry in general.
Are you surprised about this, Francine?
Francine L Shaw: I was gonna say, so we know this. You and I, and industry professionals that do what we do. We all know that there's salmonella in poultry. If you watched Poisoned you know.
Matt Regusci: Yes.
Francine L Shaw: There's salmonella in poultry.
Matt Regusci: As Bill will say, the Emmy award-winning documentary Poisoned.
Francine L Shaw: And the reason there is salmonella in poultry is because there's allowed to be salmonella.
Matt Regusci: There's allowed to be, yes.
Francine L Shaw: It's not against government regulations for salmonella to be in poultry. [00:04:00] So they are perfectly within their legal guidelines for salmonella to be in poultry.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. And what this report found was what they were testing in the grocery stores was actually over the limits that the USDA describes for salmonella and poultry, which is still egregious in my point of view.
Okay. Well let's go through this 'cause this is so interesting. Okay. So this report found that many plants, including those that process and sell poultry under the brand names such as Foster Farms, Costco, and Perdue levels of salmonella routinely exceed the maximum standard set by the federal government.
Okay. The USDA is knowingly allowing millions of packages of chicken contaminated with salmonella to be sold in stores from major brands. Says Andrew, the organization's executive director of Farm Forward. His last name is on here, but it, I'm not gonna butcher it. [00:05:00] Andrew, the Executive director of Farm Forward. Sorry, Andrew, I'm just gonna call you Andrew.
1.3 million Americans are sickened each year by eating salmonella contaminated by food. Yes, and roughly 19,000 people are hospitalized annually and an estimated 420 die from infected food. We need new statistics on this, but anyways. The chicken and turkey account for nearly a quarter of all salmonella infections according to the 2021 government report on food illness. Literally chicken and turkey, poultry in general, accounts for nearly a quarter of all the salmonella infections.
Francine L Shaw: 1.3 million people. That's a lot of people.
Matt Regusci: Yes. And the poultry industry accounts for something like, I don't know, 400,000 of those. Little more than 400,000.
Francine L Shaw: But that's okay.
Matt Regusci: So, "Lincoln [00:06:00] Premium Poultry treats the safety of his products as his utmost concern", says the Director of Administration in the email. "When the United States Department of Agricultural reports are updated and published, they will show that we have enhanced our standing. We will continue to improve our processes."
A spokesperson from Butterball said "It takes food safety very seriously. It allows all USDA and FSIS, which is the Food Safety Arm Regulations and inspection protocols. We are constantly reviewing and improving our food safety programs to ensure we meet and exceed the government standards."
Yes. Okay, so we are in this article talk about what the government standards are, which are pretty interesting.
Consumers should not be concerned, says Tom Super, a spokesman for the chicken council. He said that the report was unscientific, quote unquote, and described Farm Forward as a quote, activist organizations whose stated goal [00:07:00] is to end commercial chicken farming.
Well, that may be true that that is their goal but that doesn't mean that the results are not right. And so while I'm not for ending commercial chicken farming, I am for ending salmonella in one third or over 400,000 of the cases annually in consumers. You can be for commercial farming and also against poisoning people. I don't know, am I? Is that too far of a stretch?
Francine L Shaw: I don't think so. We managed to do this in the beef industry.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. But they made E coli an adulterant.
Francine L Shaw: And if I remember correctly, I think the beef industry even supported it.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. 'cause they're being so beat up, which is what the poultry industry is doing right now, is they're getting beat up, but they're not supporting naming [00:08:00] salmonella an adulterant.
Francine L Shaw: No they're not. And shame on them.
Matt Regusci: So I love this. This was a quote that was used in Poisoned all the time, too. Chicken is safe to eat when properly handled and cooked, said Mattos, noting that annually Californians eat more chicken than any other state. 110 pounds per person. Okay.
Francine L Shaw: So, that boggles my mind like, I'm sorry.
Matt Regusci: What I think is, what I think is funny though is when obviously there was probably an interview or something that was said and then the recorder is going to take the lines and put it into whatever context they want, but all chicken is safe to eat would properly handled and cooked. True, but still there are over 400,000 people annually getting sick from salmonella from your product.
So some sort of disconnect is happening between your product having salmonella on it, and people properly handling and cooking their [00:09:00] chicken. They're doing it with 110 pounds a year.
Francine L Shaw: And I posted that picture on LinkedIn three weeks ago or so that had packaging, which showed basically improper handling procedures on the package. I don't know if it was a turkey or chicken. Do you remember that?
Matt Regusci: Yeah. Yes I do. I remember that.
Francine L Shaw: So if we're gonna save this, let's get our stuff together.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. My daughter's roommate was washing chicken and my daughter about flipped her lid on that poor kid, and it's always been a dinner. What's my mom and grandma do this? She's like, no, you're getting salmonella all over the kitchen. What are you doing?
But like, this is what's allowable for the government in terms of the contamination of salmonella. Okay? This, these are the allowable limits. Okay? For ground turkey or for ground chicken. The [00:10:00] USDA allows 25% of the samples at a plant to be contaminated.
For ground turkey's, 13.5%. For chicken parts, it should not exceed 15.4% of samples contaminated with salmonella and the number is 9.8, so almost 10% of whole chicken carcasses. So yeah, that is the reason why over 400,000 people get sick from salmonella annually from chicken.
Francine L Shaw: And if you're eating 110 pounds of chicken a year, you're buying contaminated chicken.
Matt Regusci: Odds are definitely in your favor or not in your favor. Uh, yeah. That, okay. So this is just like Hunger Games. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Francine L Shaw: I love that movie.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. So that's the allowable amount and the Farm Forward Salmonella reports showed that it was exceeding that amount.
So I think the [00:11:00] federal government's expectations are pretty crazy to begin with in allowable amounts of salmonella, and then they still didn't meet those expectations.
Francine L Shaw: Yeah, and the fact that. Oh, I'm looking for this quote from Butterball.
Matt Regusci: Oh yeah. So a spokesman from Butterball said the company quote takes food safety very seriously and follows all USDA and FSIS regulations and inspections protocols.
Spokesperson facilities are subject to regular continuous oversight, and they are constantly reviewing and improving our food safety programs to ensure we meet or exceed government standards. Okay.
Francine L Shaw: Which is great, but those standards aren't very high. We're not shooting for the stars here.
Matt Regusci: No.
So let's say that [00:12:00] Butterball meets the expectations. Let's just go with Butterball meets the expectations. That means that 25% of their ground chicken can have contamination of salmonella, means that 13.5% of their ground turkey can have it. That means that their chicken parts should not exceed 15.4% of their samples being contaminated, and the whole carcass is, like basically 10%, 9.8% for whole chickens.
Francine L Shaw: Butterball is not out there raising the advocacy flag and saying, Hey, I don't think we should be allowed to have any salmonella in our chicken. I think that should be the standard.
Matt Regusci: No. They're like, we need to exceed the government's already crazy standard for salmonella.
Francine L Shaw: None of them are. That would be something to brag about.
Matt Regusci: Yes.
Francine L Shaw: Let's just eradicate this. Yeah, that would be something to brag about.
Matt Regusci: Yes. Can you imagine, let's say on the lettuce side of things, [00:13:00] if Taylor Farms or Dole or Fresh Express said, you know what? I can guarantee you that less than 25% of our bagged lettuce has E coli in it.
If they, people are gonna be like, oh yes, let's go buy some bagged lettuce. No, they're like, zero.
Francine L Shaw: I'm gonna roll the dice on these mixed greens and go buy four bags. Only one of 'em is gonna have E coli.
Matt Regusci: Right. And I would say, okay, hamburger aside, right? All beef products, well, all beef products have, are supposed to have zero E coli in it. Okay?
But even if my steak had E coli on it, I could just sear that off and still eat it raw and it would be fine. Hamburger? No, you have to cook it all the way through because it's ground. But the E coli in like the muscle of beef is [00:14:00] less of a threat than salmonella in chicken. E coli in ground beef is equal of a threat as salmonella in chicken, and there is an expectation of zero E coli in beef products. There's an expectation of zero E coli in produce products.
So this allowance of salmonella and the industry just being like, no, we are at least meeting and really striving to exceed the government's expectations of less than 25% samples having E coli of ground of salmonella of ground chicken.
Yeah. It's not really a high bar. No. They're not doing themselves a favor by talking about this either.
Francine L Shaw: Odds of your plane crashing are.
Matt Regusci: Well, I guess in Pennsylvania, the odds of you getting nailed by a deer. We've both been hit by a deer. Literally both Francine and [00:15:00] Melissa have been been hit by a deer in the last like two weeks.
Francine L Shaw: Off a bank and into our car. We didn't hit the deer. It ran into us. So.
Matt Regusci: Well, I mean at this point in time, Francine, I would just carry tags for deer in my car. When I was a teenager, half the time I lived with a grandma in the middle of city and the other half the time I lived with a grandma in the middle of the country.
My grandma drove in the country, drove this huge RAM truck, and she had deer tags in the truck because we would run over a deer and it like did barely any damage to her massive truck.
And then she'd like throw 'em the back of the truck. We would like butcher the deer.
Francine L Shaw: Yeah, I'd pick. Well that happens. That happens frequently. I turned around and went back and it was gone, so I don't know if somebody else picked it up or if it was just badly injured and jumped over the guide rail and I don't know.
I can't imagine it wasn't hurt 'cause there was a lot of [00:16:00] damage to my car. I'm grateful it didn't come through the windshield. Poor Aunt Helen, who you know is a huge fan of our podcast, who was in the passenger seat, 85 years old, and it was a buck and it hit the windshield and it jumped off the bank and she's like I saw his eyeballs and antlers.
God, the airbag didn't come out. God bless her. Eyeballs and antlers.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. Okay. So now we can go into the quotes by Bill Marler, right? Because he definitely has something to say always about stuff like this, right? So, Bill Marler's quote is quote,
"When I hear something has salmonella, I'm like, 'OK, first question: I want to know its serotype. What kind of serotype is it?' Because that is really the [00:17:00] relevant piece of information," he said.
When inspectors find a plant that exceeds salmonella standards, there's very little that they can do except note it. So even when the inspectors see that there is a higher percentage of salmonella, than what is the USDA expectation then they just note it. The agency has no authority to enforce the standards.
If the state can actually enforce the expectations and standards and shut clients down, that would be even better than what we have right now.
Francine L Shaw: So how confident does this make the average consumer or even listener to our podcast that does not realize that inspectors go into facilities, they notice these deviations and all they can really do is continue on each inspection after inspection that these deviations are violations exist.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. So then Bill Marler starts talking. So [00:18:00] he's using the what happened with E coli and he said.
The USDA started doing retail testing, just like what Farm Forward did in their study. For a while, it felt like there was a recall a week 50, 100 and a thousand pounds here, a million pounds there, even 10 million pounds. Eventually, however, companies started testing their products and coming up with interventions to get rid of it. And you know what? The number of E coli cases linked to hamburger plummeted.
I kind of look at that and think, well, if you get salmonella out of chicken, you'll probably reduce those cases as well. And so if there was some sort of thing that happened with E coli in ground beef and beef in general, then that happens with salmonella in chicken we would reduce a significant amount of salmonella cases in the US.
Francine L Shaw: No doubt. Today, right now on his plate. He has [00:19:00] just from what we're reading, he has more listeria and salmonella cases than he does
Matt Regusci: E coli. Yeah. The only time he has E coli cases is when, for the bagged lettuce industry, he decides to have a systemic outbreak and ship it to 30 different states.
Francine L Shaw: I think he wrote.
Matt Regusci: Then. Then there's, which happens like what? Once a year?
Francine L Shaw: Well, he has a couple, I think I reread something about it like a. There's a couple other cases that are meat related. Yeah, yeah. But they're few and far between. And they're because somebody did something stupid, just something totally irresponsible.
But yeah, for the industry to take this attitude is just, I believe irresponsible on their part. It shows, in my opinion, just a total lack of disregard for consumers because they've got the ability to correct it. [00:20:00]
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Francine L Shaw: They're choosing not to. It's a choice and they're making.
Matt Regusci: What's happening in Europe.
Francine L Shaw: And not to.
Matt Regusci: Yeah. So the EU considers salmonella an adulterant, requires producers to reduce and control it via biosecurity, testing, vaccinations, recalls, and occasionally depopulation. So if there is a population of poultry in a farm in Europe, they'll eradicate the whole flock.
Francine L Shaw: So how many of our producers ship to Europe do you think? Many?
Matt Regusci: None. Remember we did that whole entire thing that they don't allow chlorine on poultry.
Francine L Shaw: Ah, that's right. That's right. Because I was thinking maybe that would force them. But no, that's right. We do put chlorine.
Do you remember years ago there was that expose on, it was, was it Dateline or might be one of 'em that's not on anymore.
I think Diane Sawyer might have done it. Food Lion was soaking [00:21:00] their poultry in bleach.
Matt Regusci: Mm, yes.
Francine L Shaw: Remember that?
Matt Regusci: Yes, I do.
Francine L Shaw: I shouldn't be laughing.
Matt Regusci: It's like somebody gets like a meat injector, starts injecting chicken with over the counter bleach, and you're like, okay, well, don't. Well, great.
Francine L Shaw: Don't. That's something that I, yeah.
Matt Regusci: Not only do you have chicken that probably still has salmonella, but it's toxic.
Francine L Shaw: Don't say that. God, we don't wanna be responsible for something stupid.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, I know. So there's gonna be some TikTok videos with you and I talking about how they need to put a syringe and chicken and with bleach. No, don't do that.
That is not good. Don't do that.
Francine L Shaw: Do not. Do not do that. No. You may die.
Matt Regusci: Just cook it to the right temperature.
Francine L Shaw: Not, we don't want this TikTok trend.
Matt Regusci: Okay. So I really think the poultry industry either needs to adopt. Somebody, one of them, [00:22:00] if one of them adopts salmonella as an adulterant, they're going to corner the marketplace and kill it.
Alright. Good luck. Don't eat poop if you eat chicken, which I do. I eat a lot of chicken.
Francine L Shaw: I love chicken. I eat a lot of chicken.
Matt Regusci: Yeah, you eat your weight and chicken, Francine.
Francine L Shaw: Maybe.
Matt Regusci: Alright, well on that note, don't eat poop. Try not to when you eat chicken.
Francine L Shaw: Yeah.
Matt Regusci: Uh, you have a, you eat ground chicken?
Francine L Shaw: 165 degrees.
That's the cooking temperature, Matt. You didn't know that.
Matt Regusci: Yes. 175 for dark meat. Oh, I love chicken thighs and chicken legs. It's like my favorite 75 for dark meat. What? Yeah. Yep. It's 160. You could cook dark meat longer, so I do like 175 for dark meat. Poke it when I'm doing my smoking.[00:23:00]
Yeah, I actually, when I go to like an Airbnb and stuff, I bring my own meat thermometer 'cause I'll cook at an Airbnb and I will check like one of those digital meat thermometers.
I will.
Francine L Shaw: Oh, I've got a ton of meat thermo. I got a ton of thermometers at my house. I'm like the queen of thermometers.
Matt Regusci: Oh yeah. Salmonella does not sound like fun. I'm sure I've had it before too. Positive I've had it before.
Francine L Shaw: I read and the IT by chain, but years ago the average person got salmonella five times in their lifetime.
Matt Regusci: Yeah.
Francine L Shaw: That was. might be an old statistic. I don't know. But years ago that was the case.
Matt Regusci: On that note, don't eat poop.