Salmonella contamination of animal feed can be disseminated to food-producing animals and further down the food chain, causing big economic losses and poses a threat to animal and public health. The presence of Salmonella in animal feed and feed ingredients is not unusual and cases of human illnesses have been reported with more than 170,000 cases in the EU in 2005, where the source of infection were found to be contaminated animal feed.
Investigations by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that protein-based animal feed are frequently contaminated with Salmonella enteric. Animal feed are usually produced in large quantities as bulk materials in a batch wise production in feed mills. The numbers of Salmonella cells in feed are usually low and their distribution may not be even.
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