Elanco Food Solutions will deliver multiple pre- and post-harvest interventions to beef, pork and poultry packers and processors as part of their total pathogen-control effort, explained Dr. K. Douglas Miller, who has been named director of the business.

Recognising that there is "no single 'silver bullet,'" he said the business will provide "integrated, science-based solutions" to support packers and processors in producing high-quality, safe and affordable beef, pork and poultry products for consumers.

Miller said Elanco will develop new technologies to help protect consumers from harmful pathogens such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, listeria and salmonella. He noted that the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reports that foodborne disease causes 76 million illnesses in the U.S. every year, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths at a cost of $US5 billion to $US22 billion.

Miller said Elanco Food Solutions will also make available exclusively for its customers the Food Safety Knowledge Solutions program, a benchmarking program that uses statistic process control methodology to help packers and processors manage pathogen-control systems. He said the program is an objective, systematic way for plants to analyse and compare their food safety performance against industry standards and identify factors that contribute to higher or lower pathogen risks.

He said the benchmarking database will be managed by AgSpan, an Elanco subsidiary with a 12-year history of maintaining data integrity and client confidentiality.