ELEVATING FOOD SAFETY STANDARDS: REAL-TIME FECAL MATTER DETECTION IN POULTRY PROCESSING

SafetySpect introduces the Contamination Sanitation Inspection (CSI) system, a groundbreakingsolution to redefine the poultry industry's approach to food safety. Poultry, pivotal in global foodproduction, carries significant risks when fecal contamination introduces pathogens like Salmonella,responsible for over a million infections annually in the U.S. Traditional contamination detection,relying heavily on visual inspections, often misses imperceptible contaminants, compromising bothsafety and regulatory standards.Addressing this gap, the CSI system, developed under the USDA NIFA SBIR Program Priorities, integrates fluorescence imaging, edge computing, and deep learning. This fusion ensures real-timefecal matter detection without necessitating a darkened environment, a significant leap fromexisting methods.Our Phase I objectives encompass (1) Finalizing CSI system customization and initial softwaredeployment for poultry data management, (2) Completion of comprehensive data collection,preliminary contamination detection models training, and initial hardware compatibilityassessments, and (3) Building image classification models to differentiate between fecalcontamination sources and detection of invisible fecal contamination and correlating it to theoccurrence of Salmonella and Campylobacter.The CSI system combines technological advancements with pressing industry needs to enhancepoultry inspection accuracy and efficiency. This initiative can protect consumer health andstrengthen the credibility of poultry producers. Collaborations with esteemed academic institutionsand prominent research entities will be instrumental in optimizing our methodology and setting anew benchmark for food safety standards.