The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspects meat, poultry, and egg products to verify whether the food produced is safe, wholesome, and properly labeled. Verification activities serve to protect the public from foodborne hazards. A key FSIS inspection verification activity is the sampling of product for microbiological contaminants or chemical residues. This page contains data and data documentation for sampling programs that assess the presence of microbiological contaminants in various commodities. The data documentation should be reviewed before any analysis is conducted as it describes the fields present in the datasets, identifies when changes in laboratory testing methods occurred, and explains how certain results are possible (e.g., why a poultry sample might have a result for Salmonella but not Campylobacter).

FSIS publicly releases datasets on laboratory sampling results and updates these datasets quarterly and annually. For each laboratory sampling results topic two datasets are provided: archived and current. The archived dataset provides data starting from October 1, 2013, up to the final day of the previous fiscal year (FY) of the report execution date (e.g., the data posted in April 2022 was through the end of FY21). The archived dataset is updated annually. The current dataset provides data starting from the first day of the FY following the final date available in the archived dataset through the end of the previous fiscal quarter of the report execution date (e.g., data posted in April 2022 was through the end of FY22 Quarter 1). The current dataset is updated quarterly.

Each row in the datasets represents one sample collected and sent to an FSIS laboratory for analysis. Isolate characterization data will not be publicly posted in the datasets until the full characterization profile is completed.  

Data contained in this dataset on tested product from establishments are not sufficient to determine an association with human illnesses. Further epidemiologic information is needed to determine if there is an association among the non-clinical isolates and human illnesses.

Information about FSIS laboratory sampling and procedures can be found on the FSIS website on the following web pages: Laboratories & Procedures and Microbiology Laboratory Guidebook. 

Sample Datasets and Documentation

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Sampling Results for FSIS Regulated Products

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Egg Product Sampling

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• Egg Product Sampling, 1995-2017

Raw Beef Components Sampling

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Raw Beef Follow-up Sampling

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Raw Beef Trim Sampling

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Raw Ground Beef Sampling

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Raw Chicken Carcasses Sampling

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Raw Chicken Parts Sampling

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Raw Comminuted Chicken Sampling

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Raw Comminuted Turkey Sampling

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Raw Turkey Carcasses Sampling

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Raw Poultry Follow-Up Sampling

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Raw Pork Products Sampling

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Ready-to-Eat (RTE) Intensified Verification Testing

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Ready-to-Eat (RTE) Meat and Poultry Sampling

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Risk-based Listeria monocytogenes Sampling

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Siluriformes Product Sampling 

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Salmonella Verification Testing Program Monthly Sampling

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Related Aggregate Information

• Sampling Results for FSIS Regulated Products: FSIS calculates prevalence, volume weighted percent positive, or percent positive calculations for microbial pathogens in FSIS regulated products that are currently sampled through existing sampling projects. FSIS evaluated its sampling projects in 2012 to determine if they could be used to calculate prevalence; this evaluation was used to guide the development of these calculations. FSIS intends to provide new calculations each quarter using the prior 12 months of sampling data.