Salmonella Contamination Is a Huge Issue for Costco Chicken and Other Poultry

You might want to reconsider that Costco chicken you were planning on having for dinner.

The American poultry industry is plagued by salmonella contamination, according to a new report from animal welfare organization Farm Forward¹. A combination of high permissible thresholds from USDA, poor oversight from USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and frequent humane violations has led to an industry rife with contaminated chicken. 

Major poultry companies including Perdue, Foster Farms, Cargill, Butterball, and Costco’s supplier Lincoln Premium Poultry have “repeatedly” received the USDA’s worst rating for excessive salmonella contamination — and all without consequences, according to the report. As a result, contaminated chicken has “likely” been purchased for federal nutrition assistance programs like school lunches.

Details of the Poultry Report

The new report was compiled using data that USDA makes public on its website. This data revealed that five poultry plants were given the lowest Category 3 rating for salmonella contamination every month from 2020 to 2024. 

Of these five plants, three were large facilities: Butterball’s turkey plant in Carthage, Missouri; Cargill’s turkey plant in Dayton, Virginia; and Koch Foods’ chicken plant in Cumming, Georgia. Perdue’s Georgetown, Delaware plant received a Category 3 ranking 95 percent of the time, while Lincoln Premium Poultry plant (AKA the source of Costco chicken) earned a Category 3 ranking 92 percent of the time. The Lincoln plant slaughters over 100 million chickens annually for Costco’s rotisserie chicken and Kirkland Signature raw chicken brand. 

While more than 90 percent of plants nevertheless met the USDA’s standards, the ones that didn’t are “massive plants producing a significant percentage of the U.S. poultry supply,” according to Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Forward’s executive director. “A huge amount of contaminated meat is going out the door [onto] the shelves and into homes, and we’re not using every tool we can to prevent that.”

The Perfect Storm for Salmonella

Analysis in the report showcased the complexity of the issue, which begins with USDA’s “significant” allowable salmonella contamination levels in poultry: 15.4% positive for chicken parts and a whopping 25% for “comminuted” (aka ground or processed) chicken.

This is further compounded by a lack of oversight from FSIS, which, the report says, lacks the authority needed to enforce its already lax salmonella standards. 

“The agency cannot shut down plants for repeated contamination, stop contaminated products from entering the food supply, or issue recalls— even when plants repeatedly fail its standards for contamination,” write the report authors. And while FSIS proposed a rule in August 2024 to limit salmonella in raw poultry, it withdrew the proposal in May 2025 following pushback from the poultry industry².

The inhumane treatment of birds within the factory farming industry further contributes to the likelihood of contamination. “Birds raised in crowded, stressful conditions are more likely to shed bacteria,” write the report authors.

Why Salmonella Needs to Be Taken Seriously

Salmonella is one of the leading causes of foodborne illness and the leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the United States³. According to the Centers for Disease Control, salmonella bacteria contributed to 1.3 million illnesses and 238 deaths in 2019 alone⁴. 

If we want to do anything about salmonella prevention, poultry is a great place to start. According to a 2025 analysis in the Journal of Food Protection, the poultry industry accounts for almost one-fifth of all salmonella-related foodborne illness⁵, making it the leading cause of salmonella infection.

Sources:

1. https://www.farmforward.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Farm-Forward-Salmonella-and-Foodborne-Disease-October-2025.pdf 
2. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/25/2025-07187/salmonella-framework-for-raw-poultry-products
3. https://www.cdc.gov/food-safety/php/data-research/foodborne-illness-burden/index.html
4. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/31/4/24-0913_article
5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X25002121

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