The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is implementing a new nationwide program for the inspection of establishments selling ready-to-eat meat, including deli meats and grocery stores that sell them.
The new program follows a pilot program and will require inspectors to collect food-contact and non-food-contact surface swabs in addition to product samples. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) plans to phase in the program across its nine districts beginning in January 2027 and running through March 2027.
“Broader sampling and more data ultimately means safer food,” according to FSIS. “The agency intends to use the resulting data to work with establishments to ensure that corrective actions effectively address root causes or harborage sites.”
The program is part of a series of changes to FSIS oversight of Listeria in ready-to-eat (RTE) facilities following the deadly 2024 Listeria outbreak traced to Boar Head deli meat. A review of records showed that there was a history of food safety failures at the company’s Jarret, VA, production facility that went unresolved despite the fact that inspectors repeatedly found violations.
The FSIS pilot program took place in the Alameda, Chicago and Raleigh districts. Results from the pilot project have not been published.
As with the pilot program, the nationwide program will require inspectors to take four environmental swabs at the same time RTE product samples are collected under the existing program. FSIS will train inspection personnel responsible for collecting samples and supervisors as part of the phased implementation approach.
The samples will consist of two food-contact surface swabs and two non-food-contact surface swabs, each of which will be analyzed for both Listeria monocytogenes and non-monocytogenes Listeria species.
If the sampling identifies Listeria monocytogenes, whole genome sequencing will be performed and compared to reported illnesses or other historical results.
Environmental samples have traditionally been collected as part of specialized sampling activities, typically conducted by Enforcement, Investigations, and Analysis Officers at irregular intervals. Under the new program, in-plant inspectors will collect a small number of environmental samples but at a more regular frequency.
The FSIS says the expanded sampling as a tool for identifying potential Listeria harborage sites and assessing sanitation effectiveness at individual establishments while also providing insight into Listeria trends nationwide.
Companies producing RTE products under FSIS jurisdiction are expected to take steps to prepare for the increased sampling, such as:
- Evaluating the establishment’s environmental monitoring program and historical findings;
- Assessing corrective action and root cause investigation practices and capabilities;
- Conducting any desired program updates or self-evaluations before enhanced sampling is implemented; and
- Ensuring the company has the ability understand and assess WGS results.
