Salmonella in canola meal handled appropriately

Salmonella has been discovered in a Canadian canola meal shipment, but the situation was quickly resolved.


The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notified Bunge in December that a sample of canola meal from its Hamilton crush plant tested positive for the 
bacteria.


“The product did not enter the U.S. and has been handled in an appropriate manner,” Bunge said in an emailed statement.


Subsequent shipments of meal from the plant have tested negative for salmonella and there are no restrictions on shipping the product to the United States.


Salmonella tainted canola meal became a major problem for Canadian crushers in 2009 and 2010.


The FDA placed export restrictions on seven crush facilities, disrupting sales to Canada’s top customer.


Shipments to the U.S. plummeted from 160,000 tonnes per month to 60,000 tonnes per month during the height of the crisis in early 2010.


Export restrictions were gradually lifted as plants made changes to their production process and adopted best management practices.


Chris Vervaet, executive director of the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association, said the latest incident is a one-off and not the start of another problem.


“We’ve always had really good practices in place, but our members and our plants have really upped those mitigation measures and we have very robust best management practices in place now to really mitigate that risk,” he said.


The mitigation measures include the toasting and pelletizing processes in which high temperatures kill bacteria. Some product is also treated with a bacteria inhibitor to prevent contamination.


Best management practices include rigorously cleaning crush facilities to ensure there is no contamination of the meal.


Vervaet stressed that the salmonella contamination is not a food safety issue.


“Canola meal of course is not consumed by humans,” he said.


“It is an animal feed, but (salmonella) does not make the animals sick except for a few forms that some animals are sensitive to.”


One change since 2009-10 episodes is that the FDA has adopted new guidelines to categorize the risk of salmonella, with eight strains considered high risk.


The U.S. is a significant market for Canadian canola meal, consuming 85 percent of Canada’s total production and 95 percent of its exports.


Canada produces 3.5 to 4 million tonnes of canola meal a year.