Food safety is truly a non-competitive issue. Many of us recall when this declaration was adopted by the boards of directors of all major food trade associations and the collaborations that underpinned and were amplified by this declaration.
One of the successes of these collaborations has been the advance in control of Shiga toxin producing E. coli by the meat industry. In retrospect, this progress was facilitated greatly by processors coming together in various ways to share key learnings, technology, testing and sampling techniques and solutions to lower the prevalence of this category of organisms in finished product. A key factor was working with regulators to facilitate a controls strategy that encouraged progress. While there is more to do, the reduction in isolations of this category of organisms from meats and the obvious public health benefits should be counted among our evolving successes.