Sample Sources may include these types of establishments and samples:

• Federal (verification; follow-up)
• Retail (verification; follow-up)
• State (verification; follow-up)
• Import (verification; follow-up). For Import samples, the column "Where Collected" is defined as Country of Origin.

Totals: "Total Positives" and "Total Samples Analyzed" are the totals since FSIS began its testing program to detect E. coli O157:H7 in raw ground beef on October 17, 1994.

Positives on this table are not equivalent to positives on the Summary Year-to-Date or Serogroups tables because one sample may be positive for more than one serogroup.

4Sample Sources may include these types of establishments and types of samples:

• Federal
• Import (For Import samples, the column "Where Collected" is defined as Country of Origin.)
• Federal Follow-up to a Positive Raw Ground Beef (RGB) Sample - A Raw Ground Beef Component (RGBC) Sample
• Federal Trim Verification (RGBC) Sample
• Federal Follow-up to a Positive RGBC Sample - A RGBC Sample
• Federal RGBC Other Than Trim Verification Sample

Samples Analyzed the Year column refers to the total number of samples analyzed for the year at the time of the positive result. For the most current analyzed totals, see the Year-to-Date Summary tables.

Totals: "Total Positives" and "Total Samples Analyzed" are the totals since FSIS began its testing program to detect E. coli O157:H7 in raw ground beef components in 2007 and non-O157 STECs in 2012. This is the number of samples through the sample analysis completion date.

Non-routine samples are those that were not part of FSIS’ microbiological sampling programs but were analyzed in response to an external issue such as an outbreak investigation or consumer complaint.