Control of Salmonella in Low-Moisture Foods I: Minimizing Entry of Salmonella into a Processing Facility

There is a common misconception that low numbers of Salmonella are not a problem in low-moisture foods because these products do not support Salmonella growth. However, low numbers of Salmonella in foods can cause illness, and the presence of the organism in low-moisture ready-to-eat foods
must be prevented. Over the past several decades, a number of outbreaks of salmonellosis have been associated with the consumption of ready-to-eat low-moisture products, including chocolate, powdered infant formula, raw almonds, toasted oats breakfast cereal, dry seasonings, paprika-seasoned potato chips, dried coconut, infant cereals and, more recently, peanut butter, products containing peanut-derived ingredients, and children’s snacks made of puffed rice and corn with a vegetable seasoning.
These outbreaks underscore the difficulty of eradicating Salmonella from the environment
of dry product manufacturing facilities and highlight the need to reinforce industry preventive control measures through guidance based on the best available information. To address the need for industrywide guidance, the grocery manufacturers association formed a Salmonella control task Force to develop, through a review and synthesis of industry programs and information from the literature, this guidance document, which includes seven elements for the control of Salmonella in the manufacture of low-moisture foods. Two of the control elements, preventing ingress or spread in a facility and controlling raw materials, are described in this paper, along with background information on outbreaks and an overview of current industry practices. This is the first in a three-part series
of articles.