On August 2, 2024, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) updated its laboratory testing methods for salmonella.

To make lab testing more efficient, FSIS is updating a differential plating media used to isolate salmonella from other gut microbes. Xylose Lysine Deoxycholate (XLD) agar will replace Brilliant Green Sulfa (BGS) AGAR for laboratory confirmation of salmonella. XLD AGAR is a proven medium that provides better colony growth and salmonella identification in the high-throughput environment of field testing in the FSIS laboratory. This will enable faster identification of salmonella colonies, reduce the reporting time of test results for salmonella-containing samples, and will not affect the confirmation of overall salmonella positive rates. In addition, FSIS will use Neogen® Molecular Detection System (MDS) platform (formerly 3M™ MDS) screening cecum samples of food animals for the presence of salmonella.

For more details, see:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/news-events/news-press-releases/constituent-update-august-2-2024