Page 8 - National Poultry Newspaper

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The NSW Health and the Food Authority is investigat- ing an outbreak of salmonella enteritidis.
DPI investigates egg recalls
Page 8 – National Poultry Newspaper, May 2019
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RETAILERS and wholesalers across four states that were impacted by the recall of hundreds of thousands of eggs re- cently have been scruti- nised by the Department of Primary Industries.
The department is inves- tigating the supply chain links between the three farms that had egg recalls in the past month.
John Barry from Aus- tralian Eggs said the first recall of Bridgewater Poultry in March involved hundreds of thousands of eggs.
These eggs were distrib- uted across four states and sold at major retailers.
“The two recalls since then have been smaller quantities,” Mr Barry said.
“Ash Sons involved eggs sold at independent gro- cers and was NSW only.
“The recall from April 6 involving Southern High- lands Organic was across NSW and Victoria and in- volved eggs sold at Wool- worths, but the quantity is relatively small as organic eggs are a specialty prod- uct.”
NSW DPI has increased surveillance and monitor- ing at poultry farms and has issued biosecurity directions to individual properties, including quarantine of premises to stop movement of eggs into the marketplace.
A DPI spokesperson said: “Salmonella can be spread between premises via egg transport, egg
pallets, feed, rodents and the movement of people and vehicles on and off farm.”
Southern Tablelands producers, Rodney Pope from Free Range Eggs in Goulburn and Theresa Robinson from Bumnuts Australia in Gunning, have had to account for the traceability of their product to both the Food Authority and the DPI.
“We were asked what we do, and we just produce our own, we haven’t been buying and selling from other farms, so we are less risk,” Mr Pope said.
Bumnuts Australia, which keeps studious re- cords, was asked to sup- ply daily monitoring and delivery records.
“I have all those records, it’s pretty transparent,” Mrs Robinson said.
Mr Pope said it is pos- sibly too early to know what effect the full extent of the recall will have for his business.
“I don’t know exactly to what extent it has affect- ed those farms, whether they’ve had layers culled, or if it’s just a temporary cessation of selling eggs,” he said.
The NSW Health and the Food Authority is in- vestigating an outbreak of salmonella enteritidis, which has affected 167 NSW residents since the strain was first detected in May 2018.
Originally published by Clare McCabe at crook wellgazette.com.au
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Salmonella outbreaks expected to increase in severity and number
THE severity of future salmonella outbreaks is expected to rise, ac- cording to a new Uni- versity of Sydney study that found outbreaks can be predicted months in advance.
The study found salmo- nella pathogens are close- ly linked and can spread, leading to the emergence of a dominant or ‘aggres- sive strain’.
The university’s leading public health microbiolo- gist Prof Vitali Sintchen- ko said their work would assist the food industry to predict future outbreaks.
“Our paper was able to
identify how the salmo- nella pathogen evolves and mutates and can help us better understand what in- fluences it to adapt, change and strengthen,” he said.
It comes as another egg recall was issued due to a potential salmonella enteritidis risk in late- April for products under Steve’s Farm Fresh Eggs brand in NSW.
It is the fourth recall this year and the seventh property that has been identified as affected by an outbreak in NSW.
Chief executive of the NSW Food Authority Dr Liza Szabo said the re-
calls were “due to a clus- ter of interconnected egg farms across the state”.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries is trying to contain the spread of the bacteria “through increased sur- veillance and testing in co-operation with the egg industry”.
The egg industry has maintained confidence in its procedures despite suggestions from produc- ers that redefining free- range farming could help.
Egg Farmers of Aus- tralia director John Cow- ard said the biosecurity measures in place have
been positive, as seen through the rapid decline in the number of food poisoning cases.
“At the end of the day it’s about those biosecurity arrangements that each farm, irrespective of the number of birds they’ve got, are adopting and that’s the real critical control point,” he said.
“We would encourage all producers to look at the quality assurance stand- ards that have been devel- oped for small, medium and large operations.”
Originally published by Bethany Griffiths on The Weekly Times online.
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