ST. LOUIS — The U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a comprehensive plan to bolster USDA’s efforts to combat foodborne illness July 15 at the opening of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) new, modernized Midwestern Food Safety Laboratory.

The plan better positions USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which is responsible for ensuring meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and properly labeled, to protect the nation’s food supply. FSIS will continue to work in close collaboration with partners like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure the safety of the entire food supply chain.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring American consumers have the safest, most abundant, and affordable food supply in the world. When it comes to food safety, USDA is charting a bold new course in giving consumers confidence their meat, poultry, and egg products meet our best-in-class food safety standards,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. “I look forward to continued collaboration across the Trump administration, with states, and with food producers from farm to table, to reduce foodborne illness and protect public health.”

USDA’s Plan to Bolster Food Safety

1. Enhancing

Microbiological Testing and

Inspection

Oversight

USDA is making continued enhancements to its Listeria testing method to provide quicker results to industry and to detect a broader set of Listeria species. These additional results highlight conditions where Listeria monocytogenes can thrive in facilities producing ready-to-eat (RTE) products and help industry and FSIS identify potential sanitation problems. In 2025, FSIS has tested over 23,000 samples for Listeria, a more than 200 percent increase in samples from 2024.

2. Equipping FSIS Inspectors with Updated Training and Tools

This year, FSIS implemented a new weekly questionnaire for frontline inspectors to collect data on specific Listeria monocytogenes-related risk factors at all RTE establishments. This new tool collects important data to identify developing food safety concerns, allowing FSIS inspectors and their supervisors to take timely action to protect consumers. To date, approximately 53,000 weekly questionnaires with over 840,000 new data points have been collected on these risk factors.

To complement this, FSIS continues to enhance its instructions and related training for inspectors to help them recognize and elevate problems with an establishment’s food safety system.

3. Charging Ahead to Reduce

Salmonella

Illnesses

Secretary Rollins has charged FSIS to find a more effective and achievable approach to address Salmonella in poultry products. FSIS withdrew President Biden’s proposed Salmonella Framework in April in light of significant concerns raised by stakeholders about the regulatory burden and costly impacts it would have had on small poultry growers and processors. The Trump administration is pursuing a new, common-sense strategy on Salmonella to protect public health while preventing unnecessary regulatory overreach, which will begin by convening listening sessions with key stakeholders to collaborate on best approaches moving forward.

4. Strengthening State Partnerships

States are crucial partners in ensuring a safe and strong food supply and provide a vital service in bringing nutritious, affordable American food products to dinner tables across the country. In May, Secretary Rollins announced an additional $14.5 million in funding to reimburse states for their meat and poultry inspection programs and called on Congress to more sustainably fund these critical programs moving forward. This funding is needed to support more than 1,500 American businesses that rely on state inspection, including small and very small meat and poultry processors. The Secretary also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture in May to improve collaboration between USDA and states moving forward.

Additionally, this year, FSIS signed updated, comprehensive cooperative agreements with all 29 states that operate state meat and poultry programs.

5. Empowering FSIS Inspectors to Take Action to Drive Compliance

FSIS is exercising its enforcement authorities and issuing notices of intended enforcement or suspending operations at establishments to address recurring noncompliance and ensure safe food production. The agency has taken 103 enforcement actions in 2025 to protect consumers, an increase of 36 percent over the same period in 2024. Additionally, FSIS has instructed its field supervisors to conduct in-person, follow-up visits when systemic issues are identified during a Food Safety Assessment. Follow-up visits by FSIS field supervisors bolster oversight to ensure an establishment fully addresses issues identified during a Food Safety Assessment and could inform enforcement action by FSIS.