Most Americans take for granted that the food they purchase at the grocery store is safe to eat. But ensuring the safety of the food supply requires a coordinated effort involving scientific monitoring, regulatory oversight, and public health infrastructure. Among the most serious threats are bacterial pathogens, which are the second-leading cause of food recalls after undeclared allergens, and can lead to widespread foodborne illness.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 48 million people in the United States get sick from foodborne illnesses each year. Of these, approximately 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die. Bacterial contamination of retail meat—particularly by pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter—is a major contributor to this.
Oversight of the food supply is a shared responsibility between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, both agencies are currently facing significant budget cuts that may reduce their capacity to monitor pathogens, investigate outbreaks, and enforce safety standards. One key surveillance effort is the FDA’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), which tracks antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in retail meats. This report by Trace One—a regulatory compliance software company for the food and beverage sector—draws on the most recent NARMS data to examine trends in contamination by meat type, identify patterns in resistance, and rank states by relative levels of contamination in retail meat products.
Here are the key takeaways from the report:
- Over one-third of retail meat samples in the U.S. tested positive for at least one type of potentially harmful bacteria, according to FDA NARMS data.
- Chicken and ground turkey showed the highest contamination rates for Salmonella and Campylobacter—the two bacteria most commonly associated with foodborne illness.
- Nearly 1 in 4 bacterial isolates exhibited resistance to three or more classes of antibiotics, with ground turkey and chicken showing the highest rates of multidrug resistance.
- Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee—neighboring states in the Southeast—ranked highest for bacterial contamination risk.
What Percentage of Retail Meat Is Contaminated?
Approximately 36% of retail meat samples test positive for bacteria
Source: Trace One analysis of FDA NARMS data
The FDA’s NARMS initiative tests retail meats for several types of bacteria known to cause illness or indicate unhygienic processing conditions. Enterococcus and Escherichia coli (E. coli) are often used as indicators of fecal contamination and general sanitation in meat processing environments. Salmonella and Campylobacter, by contrast, are leading causes of foodborne illness and can lead to serious health issues, particularly when resistant to antibiotics.
Meat can become contaminated with these bacteria at several points during the production process—most often during slaughter, handling, or packaging. Bacteria from the animal’s intestinal tract can spread to the meat surface if sanitation procedures are not strictly followed. Contamination can also occur through contact with unclean equipment, workers’ hands, or water used in processing facilities.
Across all meat types, NARMS data show that more than one-third (36.2%) of retail meat samples test positive for at least one of these four bacteria. However, not every sample is tested for all four. And the two bacteria that are most commonly tested—Salmonella (82.2% of samples) and Campylobacter (39.4%)—are also the least likely to be found, which lowers the overall positivity rates.
Chicken and ground turkey—two of the most commonly consumed poultry products—show the highest contamination rates for the bacteria most closely associated with foodborne illness. Among the samples tested for each bacterium, chicken had the highest rates of Salmonella (17.9%) and Campylobacter (17.1%), both of which are major causes of gastrointestinal disease and hospitalization. Ground turkey, while typically free from Campylobacter, showed a notably high Salmonella positivity rate (11.4%) and the highest rate of E. coli contamination (67.2%) among all meats tested. Ground beef and pork chops tend to have lower positivity rates of Salmonella and Campylobacter.
How Common Is Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in Food?
Nearly 23% of bacteria isolates obtained from retail meat showed multidrug resistance
Source: Trace One analysis of FDA NARMS data
The presence of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is a growing concern in food safety, particularly when those bacteria are resistant to multiple drug classes. These multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains make infections significantly harder to treat and can increase the risk of hospitalization or death. In the food industry, antimicrobial resistance often arises when antibiotics are routinely used in livestock production—not only to treat infections, but also to promote growth and prevent disease in intensive farming environments. This repeated exposure selects for resistant strains, which ultimately multiply and enter the food chain.
The FDA’s NARMS program monitors this threat by testing bacterial isolates from retail meat samples for resistance to various classes of antimicrobial drugs. According to the latest data, nearly one in four bacterial isolates (22.8%) obtained from retail meat samples were found to be resistant to three or more drug classes. Rates of multidrug resistance varied by both bacteria and meat type. Among all bacteria, Salmonella had the highest overall MDR rate at 35.5%, followed by E. coli (26.0%), Enterococcus (15.3%), and Campylobacter (13.6%).
The data show that poultry products again stand out as a key source of concern. Chicken had the highest MDR rate for Salmonella (39.1%) and an overall MDR rate of 25.6%. Ground turkey showed particularly high resistance rates across the board, with 29.9% of Salmonella and 29.4% of Campylobacter isolates demonstrating multidrug resistance—resulting in an overall MDR rate of 29.7%, the highest of any meat type. By contrast, ground beef had consistently low resistance levels, with just 6.4% of all isolates showing multidrug resistance.
Retail Meat Bacterial Contamination by State
Neighboring Georgia, South Carolina & Tennessee report the highest contamination rates
Source: Trace One analysis of FDA NARMS data
To assess geographic differences in food safety, a composite risk index was calculated for states that participate in NARMS. Because participating states differ in how they sample meats and which bacteria they test for, the analysis focused only on meat-pathogen combinations that were consistently measured across states. For chicken and ground turkey, the index reflects the percentage of samples that tested positive for either Salmonella or Campylobacter. For pork chops and ground beef, only Salmonella positivity rates were included.
The results reveal a notable regional pattern: three neighboring Southeastern states—Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee—rank highest for overall contamination risk. Georgia tops the list with a risk index of 69.05, driven by high positivity rates in chicken (29.8%), ground turkey (13.3%), and ground beef (1.4%). South Carolina and Tennessee follow closely, each reporting elevated contamination in poultry and pork products and moderate levels in beef.
More broadly, higher contamination scores are clustered in parts of the Southeast and Midwest, with states like Minnesota, Missouri, and Pennsylvania also appearing in the upper tier. In contrast, several Western states—including Washington, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Colorado—rank lower, as does Louisiana.
For complete results for all participating states broken out by meat type, see the original report on Trace One: Food Safety Risks: U.S. States With the Highest Bacterial Contamination in Retail Meat.
Methodology
Photo Credit: Microgen / Shutterstock
This analysis was conducted by Trace One using data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), which tracks bacterial contamination and antimicrobial resistance in retail meats. The study examined data from 2019 through 2021, the most recent three-year period for which complete data were available at the time of analysis.
For national-level comparisons, bacterial contamination was evaluated across all major meat types—chicken, ground turkey, ground beef, and pork chops—and four bacterial pathogens: Campylobacter, Enterococcus, Escherichia (E. coli), and Salmonella. However, due to state-level variability in sampling practices, the state-level analysis focused only on meat-bacteria combinations that were consistently tested across all states.
Specifically, for chicken and turkey, the analysis calculated the percentage of samples tested for both Salmonella and Campylobacter that were positive for at least one of these two bacteria. For beef and pork, only Salmonella contamination was assessed. Based on these measures, a composite “retail meat risk index” was created to rank states according to their relative levels of contamination. This index accounts for how each state ranked across the standardized meat-pathogen combinations.
Because of substantial differences in how states collect and submit samples—including variation in sample sizes, retail sources, and testing procedures—it was not useful to calculate an overall contamination rate across all states.
For complete results, see Food Safety Risks: U.S. States With the Highest Bacterial Contamination in Retail Meat on Trace One.
