Use of Direct-Fed Microbials as a Preharvest Food Safety Intervention in Cattle

Abstract

Each year an estimated 76 million people in the United States develop a food-borne illness. Often, food animals are reservoirs for bacterial food-borne agents; these organisms are frequently part of the normal flora in the animals’ gastrointestinal tract and can be shed in the feces subsequently contaminating the environment or carcass at harvest. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service currently sets guidelines and oversees standards to reduce the risk of bacterial contamination of meat and poultry products, yet illnesses still occur. The discovery of new routes of pathogen transmission on items such as produce highlight the importance of additional mitigation strategies in food animals prior to harvest. Preharvest interventions to reduce the prevalence and concentration of food-borne pathogens have become a major research priority. These products include direct-fed microbials (DFMs). This chapter reviews the evidence for the use of DFMs to reduce food-borne pathogenic bacteria in cattle before they enter the food chain.