Rollins opens a new food safety lab; announces a new safety approach for USDA

At the Tuesday opening of the USDA’s new  Midwestern Food Safety Laboratory near St. Louis, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins launched a comprehensive plan to bolster efforts to combat foodborne illness.

Rollins said her 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. 

She said the FSIS will continue to work in close collaboration with partners, such as 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, Rollins said. “When it comes to food safety, USDA is charting a bold new course in giving consumers confidence that meat, poultry, and egg products meet our best-in-class food safety standards.”

 “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,” she added.   

The Rollins plan to bolster food safety was announced as the secretary opened the new USDA Midwestern Food Safety Lab in Normandy, MO, near St. Louis International Airport. Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe joined her.  The new lab has been under construction for the past two years.  It is one of three USDA labs operated by FSIS. 

While sometimes merely repeating the standing FSiS routine, the Rollins plan includes new policies that include stricter food safety inspections, enhanced testing procedures, and a quicker response to outbreaks. It consists of these five parts:

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 under which Listeria monocytogenes can thrive in facilities producing ready-to-eat (RTE) products, helping the industry and FSIS identify potential sanitation issues. In 2025, FSIS tested over 23,000 samples for Listeria, representing a more than 200 percent increase from 2024.  

To support these enhanced testing efforts, FSIS is opening the Midwestern Laboratory near St. Louis. During President Trump’s first term, the FSIS collaborated across the Trump administration and with congressional leaders to secure funding for a 70,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art laboratory to replace the current outdated facility in St. Louis. This new facility will play a critical role in analyzing verification samples for foodborne pathogens and chemical residues and will also support efforts to streamline the FSIS laboratory system.  

FSIS is also mobilizing its resources to conduct more robust, in-person Food Safety Assessments (FSAs), with a priority on RTE meat and poultry establishments. In 2025, the agency completed 440 FSAs, a 52 percent increase from the same period in 2024. These reviews proactively identify and address potential food safety concerns.   

2. Equipping FSIS inspectors with updated training and tools 

This year, the 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 essential 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, yielding 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. New instructions help inspectors recognize how to look beyond individual noncompliances and determine when an establishment has systemic issues that should be elevated and addressed. Since January, the agency has also updated its Listeria-specifictraining and administered it to over 5,200 frontline inspection personnel. This training will enhance inspectors’ understanding of the regulatory requirements in FSIS’s Listeria Rule and how to verify that establishments have designed and implemented food safety systems that comply with these requirements.  

3. Charging ahead to reduce salmonella illnesses 

Secretary Rollins has tasked FSIS with finding a more effective and achievable approach to address Salmonella in poultry products. The FSIS withdrew President Biden’s proposed Salmonella Framework in April in light of concerns raised by industry about the regulatory burden and costly impacts it would have had on poultry growers and processors. The Trump administration is pursuing a new, strategy on Salmonella to protect public health while preventing unnecessary regulatory overreach. This approach will begin by convening listening sessions with key industry to collaborate on the 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 inspection programs. These agreements clarify expectations for oversight and enforcement of food safety laws, provide extensive training for inspectors, and ensure regular coordination with FSIS. As part of its enhanced oversight of Talmadge-Aiken (TA) state cooperative programs, FSIS has completed in-person reviews at 77 percent (320 of 414) of TA establishments in the first six months of 2025.  

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 the safe production of food. The agency has taken 103 enforcement actions in 2025 to protect consumers, representing a 36 percent increase 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 enhance oversight to ensure that an establishment fully addresses problems identified during a Food Safety Assessment and may inform enforcement action by FSIS.

At the lab opening, the secretary of agriculture said, “This lab will play a key role in improving public health and ensuring safer food supplies.”

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Source: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2025/07/rollins-opens-a-new-food-safety-lab-announces-a-new-safety-approach-for-usda/