Current Funding Priorities

Funding priorities for 2020-2021 include:

Food Safety

Minimally Processed Meat and Poultry Safety

• Further investigate cattle that are Salmonella supershedders. Research should focus on variables that lead or allow animals to become supershedders for Salmonella, the prevalence of Salmonella supershedders, and what level of contamination can be attributed to these animals.
  • Determine if and how “high-concentration” or high-shedder cattle correlates to internal colonization levels of STEC and Salmonella.
• Investigate the role that different environmental factors (diet, antibiotic use, etc.) have on the microbiome of cattle that shed STEC and Salmonella.
• Develop economically viable strategies for cattle and hogs pre-harvest interventions including changes in production practices and novel feed additives. Proposals should address any obstacles in commercial adoption, including, but not limited to, regulatory approval, non-economic barriers, etc., as well as the effect of investigated pre-harvest interventions on post-harvest safety.
• Explore novel ways Salmonella may be internalized in cattle.
• Investigate internalized contamination present in the major lymph nodes of cattle. Research should:
  • Determine mitigation techniques (e.g. lymph node removal, antimicrobial application) for major lymph nodes of concern. Techniques should be implementable under normal commercial conditions.
  • Develop live animal intervention strategies to prevent or reduce Salmonella colonization within the lymphatic system.
• Develop greater understanding of the ecology and epidemiology of high concentrations of Salmonella in pigs. Determine the mechanisms for internal colonization and corresponding opportunities for control. Research should evaluate identifying hogs with higher levels of colonized Salmonella from farm to slaughter. As well as determine if certain points can alter the load of Salmonella in the animal and subsequent products. Research may address:
  • Develop a testing strategy that can predict “high-concentration” of Salmonella, in hogs or groups or hogs before slaughter with the aim to reduce contamination on carcasses, primals, parts and ground product.
  • Determine if and how “high-concentration” or shedding of Salmonella hogs correlate to internal colonization levels.
• Investigate levels of Salmonella throughout the lymphatic system of hogs (both market hogs and sows). Research may:
  • Identify specific lymph nodes of concern.
  • How to mitigate potential further contamination from lymph nodes to pork products.
  • Evaluate factors that may contribute to variation between different lymph nodes, across different production practices, regions and seasons.
• Evaluate and determine the effectiveness of non-thermal and non-chemical intervention technologies to reduce pathogen loads on beef, pork and poultry products. Research may include intervention technologies such as low-dose irradiation.
• Identify and validate antimicrobial interventions to reduce pathogen contamination of raw ground beef components intended for use in ground products. Interventions should be approved for use in the U.S. and ideally the major export markets for the specific variety meats.
• Investigate the optimal areas in production to apply interventions (trim, in grind or post grind) to reduce Salmonella and STEC contamination in beef and Salmonella contamination in pork. These areas may be different. Evaluate the efficacy of interventions applied during grinding to reduce pathogens in ground beef and pork. Proposals should build off of existing scientific research.

Further Processed Meat and Poultry Safety

• Evaluate Clostridium perfringens growth during cooling in large diameter cured and uncured products beyond 120-80°F range in one hour and 80-55°F in five hours as prescribed under Option 2 in Appendix B. 9 CFR 318.17(a)(2) and 9 CFR 381.150 (a)(2).
  • Research should evaluate worse case scenarios and cooling deviations during the cooling process while limiting potential growth of C. perfringens.
  • Determine the effect of different antimicrobials on C. perfringens and Bacillus cereus during chill deviations outside of Option 2 and for large, non-cured items, specifically, cooling from 120°F–80°F in 3–4 hours and 80°F–55°F in 3–4 hours. Investigate how other variables outside of those in Appendix B can influence pathogen outgrowth.
• Evaluate common production processes used during the production of uncured meat and poultry products (with emphasis on larger multiple muscle products) to better understand the appropriate lethality and cooling. Research should explore the addition of any ingredient that may influence the critical food safety parameters used during the production of products including those that are clean label, “natural” or organic products. Research should consider:
  • Validate cooking time, temperature, humidity parameters under various conditions/scenarios in products, including slow cook and slow come up times. L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, C. perfringens, outgrowth should be evaluated, and challenge studies would be appropriate, especially as it considers conditions such as overloaded ovens.
  • Validate cooling times as it relates to outgrowth and lethality under the same conditions as outlined above.
  • Evaluate and develop pathogen models for cooking and cooling uncured meat and poultry items (such as roast beef and poultry) that have slow come up times and experience a deviation.
  • Evaluate the effect of non-continuous cooling as it relates to slow come up time in these uncured products.
• Explore innovative pathogen control measures and parameters. Controls evaluated should address pathogens such as L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, and C. perfringens growth and survival. Research should focus on potential controls outside of those well documented in existing safe harbors (such as Appendices A and B) and scientific literature.
• Evaluate and validate Salmonella lethality on slow cooked products (i.e., BBQ) that use low wet bulb temperature and do not fit into current USDA lethality guidelines.

Cross Sector Food Safety

• Identify the combination of virulence factors that cause human illness in pathogenic Salmonella, Listeria or E. coli. Research should:
  • Determine how virulence could be monitored and biologically prevented.
  • Evaluate subsets of Salmonella, Listeria or E. coli. that differ in virulence and show distinct differences in susceptibility to a variety of interventions.
  • Identify subsets of Salmonella serovars with high and low virulence and estimate the attribution of human illnesses based on virulence.
  • Compare differences in the genetic variation and virulence expression between Salmonella and STEC that is known to cause human illness and those that are not.
• Develop methods for quantitative Salmonella enumeration and methods based on virulence factors rather than serotypes. Identify Salmonella virulence attributes that can be utilized for rapid detection and control. Proposals should demonstrate how these methods can be used to improve public health and be applied to beef, pork and poultry products. Research should:
  • Develop guidance on how to implement new technologies and methods, including the documentation required by industry to gain regulatory approval.
  • Testing technology should be compatible with the N60, N60 Plus and MicroTally sampling methods.

Environmental Food Safety

• Evaluate factors that would allow bacterial pathogens (STEC, Listeria and Salmonella) to live and thrive in different processing environments including slaughter to raw processing. Research targeting pork, should focus on Salmonella. Research targeting beef, should focus on Salmonella and STEC. Research targeting further processed meat items should address Salmonella and Listeria. Research may:
  • Assess the virulence phenotypes of these pathogens and what environmental factors may alter virulence gene expression.
  • Determine the ability of environmentally colonized Salmonella to adapt (cold tolerance, acid-adaptive, ability to produce biofilm) and alter survivability to establish residence.
• Identify methods to detect biofilm formation and removal as affected by different surfaces used in harvesting, raw processing and further processing. Research should focus on methods to detect and measure biofilm presence; cleaners to remove biofilms; and be applicable in a commercial setting.
  • Identify the potential for Salmonella harbors within the raw post-harvest processing environment and determine interventions to reduce or eliminate the presence of Salmonella in the identified harbors, which should be validated for effectiveness.
  • Identify the potential for Listeria monocytogenes harbors within the RTE environment and determine interventions to reduce or eliminate Listeria in the identified harbors.

Product Quality

• Evaluate the ability and reliability of online (rapid, automated) instruments to predict quality traits including tenderness, color stability, flavor, etc. Research should target species specific attributes where appropriate:
  • Poultry – sensory attributes including tenderness juiciness, flavor and more
  • Pork – water holding capacity, tenderness, color stability, flavor, and more
  • Beef – tenderness, color stability, flavor, and more
• Explore innovative value-added strategies that target lower quality product such as items that are predicted to be tough. Value added technologies may include packaging, processing (chemical or mechanical) or other treatments. Research can address concerns in beef, pork and poultry (concerns include woody breast chicken).
• Evaluate the effect of different interventions alone or in combination with different types of packaging methods on the microbial ecology of different products in relation to storage life, discoloration and product quality.
• Investigate pre-harvest factors (genetics, nutrition, and other raising practices) that influence post-harvest pork quality attributes such as tenderness, juiciness, color, flavor, marbling and more. Research should build upon existing knowledge.
• Assess quality traits including sensory (color, texture, tenderness, flavor and more) from harvest or day zero of fabrication to aged product. Projects should build off existing research and be practical for in plant application.
• Investigate any changes in consumer attitudes towards meat items following the COVID-19 outbreak. Research should evaluate changing trends in consumer purchasing and preferences. Changes in trends may include shifts in ecommerce purchases, shifts in items preferences (marinated, cooked or heat and serve items, ground products, steaks or others), meal kit use, and more. After shifts are identified, research should determine potential food safety and quality pitfalls with consumer preferences changes. Pitfalls may include partial thawing, refreezing, and others.

Nutritional Sciences

• Risk-benefit analysis on the consumption of minimally and further processed meat and poultry products as a component of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
  • Research may address potential risks or implications associated with eliminating or reducing minimally and further processed meat products from the diet. This could include nutrition status, water use, and environmental implications, among other outcomes.
  • Investigate potential changes to the USDA Food Patterns to improve ease of meeting nutrient recommendations for each stage of life. Food patterns should include a variety of food choices within pattern.
  • Investigate the implications of reducing meat and poultry in some dietary patterns on meeting key nutrients that can be difficult to meet. Nutrients of focus include iron, choline, vitamin D and E. Research should focus on subpopulations that do not consume enough protein and associated micronutrients such as K-12, teenage girls and those over the age of 70.
• Investigate the relationship between types of dietary fat consumed at each stage of life and neurocognitive development (birth to 18 years), neurocognitive health throughout aging, types of dietary fat and improved lipid profiles and diabetes. Relationships could include developmental milestones.
• Prepare comprehensive white paper(s) to assess what is currently known and any potential data gaps on the mechanistic development of cancer in humans for processed meat and poultry product components.
• Conduct menu modeling demonstrating the role of minimally and further processed meat and poultry products in the healthy dietary patterns identified in the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines.
• Evaluate how different dietary patterns meet, have difficulty meeting or cannot meet amino acid requirements.