During the pendency of President Joe Biden’s first and only four years in the White House, USDA announced many new regulatory and other initiatives designed to control Salmonella in USDA regulated foods. This included the historic pronouncement in 2023, finalized in 2024, that not ready-to-eat raw breaded stuffed chicken products (containing Salmonella at levels of 1 Colony Forming Unit per gram) would be deemed adulterated. Industry was aware for years that new Salmonella rules were coming, but it was nevertheless a surprise when they were announced.

To industry’s greater surprise in August 2004, USDA unexpectedly went even further, announcing that raw poultry carcasses and parts would also be deemed to be adulterated if they were found to contain any Salmonella above certain thresholds, and any detectable level of certain Salmonella serotypes that have already been deemed by the agency to represent a significant risk to public health. This rule remains in draft form, and whether it eventually becomes published as a final binding rule remains to be seen.

While both anti-Salmonella initiatives were fully expected by USDA to further strengthen the overall safety of the nation’s food supply, and thus decrease overall annual trends of Salmonella illnesses nationwide, it is not unreasonable to query whether the later proposed rule will ever come into fruition. Namely, this is because when the political winds change, the prevailing regulatory winds in many cases will change as well.

While the Biden administration was a stalwart supporter of new food safety initiatives, and supported many new, emerging, and novel rules and regulations, with the change of any administration, changes agency policies will invariably occur.  In turn, we predict that President Trump will likely take more of a hands-off approach when it comes to expansive regulation, and seek, instead, to find more ways to loosen existing regulations and allow industry more flexibility to govern itself.   

In addition, with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Loper Bright (overturning the historical Chevron deference the courts used to be required to give to agencies when it comes to statutory and regulatory interpretation), legal challenges to administrative actions are now more likely than they were previously. Indeed, USDA even anticipated such potential challenges when it published the proposed rule, stating that the agency intends each portion of the new rule to be “severable,” such that, if any portion of the rule were to be set aside or overturned by a reviewing court, it would be the agency’s intent that the remainder of the rule would remain in effect.          

So, will Salmonella officially become an adulterant in raw poultry carcasses and parts during Trump’s second and final term? Some might say “yes,” arguing that there is no way any administration would walk back a rule designed to increase food safety and decrease foodborne illnesses. But, others, might say “no,” there is no viable or economical solution to the broader Salmonella in poultry problem, and that industry should be given a reprieve.   

While the administration will not want to take any actions perceived as adversely affecting food safety, it will also likely want to protect industry from onerous and arguably unreasonable regulatory burden.  So, like you, we will be watching over the course of the coming months to see if USDA’s new proposed Salmonella rule survives the change in presidential leadership, and the policy changes which inevitably follow.