WHAT HAPPENED: NCC has released the most detailed update to its Broiler Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist since December 2022, and the guidelines have now been certified by the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO).
WHAT ARE THE GUIDELINES? Industry-wide standards for the humane treatment, care, and processing of broiler chickens. First developed by NCC in 1999, the guidelines cover every phase of a broiler chicken’s life, including:
- Hatchery Operations: Guidelines for the proper handling, temperature control, and biosecurity of newly hatched chicks.
- Growout Operations: Standards for housing, nutrition, lighting, air quality, and daily flock husbandry.
- Catching and Transportation: Detailed protocols to minimize injuries and stress during loading and transport to the processing plant.
- Processing Operations: Standards for humane stunning methods (including electrical and Controlled Atmospheric Stunning – CAS) to ensure unconsciousness prior to slaughter.
- Abuse and Audit Failure: Zero-tolerance policies for animal abuse and strict consequences for failing an on-site audit.
The guidelines continue to emphasize measurable Key Welfare Indicators (KWIs) such as mobility, insensibility at slaughter, and wing and leg injuries.
WHO IS PAACO? The leading, non-profit coalition established in 2004 that sets standards of excellence in animal welfare auditing. It promotes the humane treatment of animals by providing professional training and certification for auditors across the swine, dairy, poultry, beef cattle, and feedlot industries.
WHAT’S NEW IN THE NCC GUIDELINES:
- A new dedicated section on Controlled Atmospheric Stunning (CAS) with standards separate from electrical stunning.
- Expanded lighting verification checks.
- New requirements for hand and mechanical catching programs.
- A required routine stunning-equipment-check program with a written emergency plan
- Reorganized language throughout — including replacing “poultry” with “broiler” to more precisely reflect scope.
NCC’s TAKE: “These updated guidelines reflect our industry’s ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, grounded in the best available science,” said Ashley Peterson, Ph.D., NCC Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs. “Adding a dedicated section for Controlled Atmospheric Stunning gives companies using that technology a clear, fully scored set of standards, while our new requirements for routine stunning equipment checks and emergency response planning help ensure consistent, humane treatment of birds at every stage. We’re grateful to the veterinarians, poultry scientists, and auditors who helped shape this update.”
WHAT’S NEXT: NCC requests that auditors wait until at least October 1, 2026, to start auditing to the new 2026 NCC Broiler Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist. Until then, auditors should continue to use the 2022 NCC Broiler Welfare Guidelines and Audit Checklist. This will provide industry time to make any necessary updates. In addition, NCC has begun the process of updating our welfare guidelines for broiler breeders.
Tyson Chickens at a farm in Prairie Grove.
Photo by Beth Hall
NCC features in a short spotlight column the official representative from each of our Allied Leader and Allied Member companies. This week’s Allied Leader Spotlight is Dr. Suzanne McComb, Director, Key Acct Veterinarian, Poultry, at Boehringer Ingelheim.
We asked Dr. McComb three questions:
In 2-3 sentences, describe what good or service your company provides to the broiler industry:
Boehringer Ingelheim provides high quality and innovative poultry vaccines that assist in optimal health for breeders, broilers, commercial layers and turkeys. Our poultry portfolio is exclusively recombinant, live, and killed vaccines focused on disease control, prevention, and optimal immune health. Boehringer is a leader in innovation as we produced and licensed the novel first poultry vectored HVT recombinant vaccine. Poultry, and livestock in general, vaccines for long term innovation in both the United States and globally.
Briefly describe your position and responsibilities within the company:
I am on the Boehringer Ingelheim US animal health livestock leadership team and lead the Key Account Veterinary, (technical services) team. We focus to support our customers the technical support for our poultry vaccines and value-added collaboration. In addition, I work on long term strategy for poultry health in both the US and with our global team. We work jointly with stakeholders and allied commodity groups to promote poultry health for our customers’ needs.
What is your favorite chicken dish:
I am simple – grilled bone-in chicken thighs. They are amazing just the way they are without any spices, dry rubs or sauce.
WHAT HAPPENED: House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.) this week introduced the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (SAWA), a bill to expand and modernize the H-2A agricultural guest worker program.
WHAT’S IN THE BILL: The legislation would remove the requirement that agricultural work be seasonal in nature, redefining “temporary” as any job contract of fewer than 350 days — opening H-2A access to year-round operations including dairy and poultry processing. The bill also revises the wage calculation methodology, caps year-over-year adverse effect wage rate (AEWR) fluctuations at no more than a 3.25 percent increase or 1.5 percent decrease, and mandates a single online platform to streamline interactions with the Departments of Labor, Homeland Security, and State.
WHY IT MATTERS: Most significantly for the chicken industry, SAWA expands the statutory definition of “agricultural labor or services” to include the harvest and processing of meat and poultry. Current H-2A rules exclude processing/harvesting because they fall outside the “agricultural labor” definition tied to seasonal field work. The bill covers only slaughter and the breakdown of carcasses, meaning the provision applies to front-end plant positions only. Further processing operations — deboning, portioning, marination, and ready-to-eat lines — remain outside the scope of H-2A eligibility under this bill. The bill also transfers authority to define “agricultural labor or services” from the Secretary of Labor to the Secretary of Agriculture.
NCC’S TAKE: “Work is not seasonal in our processing plants — it is year-round, so access to a pool of stable legal workers through a viable visa program is critical to food manufacturers, like chicken processors,” said NCC President Harrison Kircher. “We thank Chairman Thompson and look forward to working with him and Congress to pass this bill.”
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: “There’s not a constituent in America, and a number of families around the world, that do not pick up the tools of agriculture an average of three times a day, knife, fork or spoon,” Thompson told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday addressing the bill. “Food security clearly is national security, and workforce is a main factor.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Because SAWA amends the Immigration and Nationality Act, it falls under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee, not the Agriculture Committee. Chairman Thompson has been working to build a broad coalition of original co-sponsors, and the bill has drawn support from more than 250 agriculture organizations. There is no companion bill in the Senate at this time. NCC will continue to engage with Congress on the legislation and advocate for provisions that support the chicken industry’s workforce needs.
House Ag Committee Chairman GT Thompson. Source: House Ag Committee
WHAT HAPPENED: In its June 26 Constituent Update, FSIS announced a new pilot program allowing poultry processing establishments to test alternative approaches to managing Salmonella. The pilot is open to chicken and turkey slaughter and processing establishments subject to one or more existing Salmonella performance standards for carcasses, parts, or comminuted products.
WHAT IS BIOMAPPING? Biomapping is a facility-specific testing approach in which an establishment samples and tests multiple sites throughout its slaughter and processing operations — rather than relying solely on standard end-product testing points — to identify where and how Salmonella levels change as product moves through the facility.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: To participate, establishments must either incorporate Salmonella biomapping into their food safety system or include a validated Critical Control Point (CCP) for Salmonella control in their HACCP plan. Facilities that already conduct biomapping or have implemented a validated CCP are also eligible to participate.
WHAT ELSE IS IN THE PROGRAM: FSIS plans to evaluate a shortened moving window for Salmonella performance standards, moving from the current 52-week window to a variable window beginning at 13 weeks, with a maximum of 52 weeks. FSIS will also consider waiver requests submitted through the Salmonella Initiative Program (SIP) for alternative carcass microbial sampling frequencies.
Under the pilot, establishments using this option must submit a sampling plan identifying the specific locations where Salmonella samples will be collected and enumerated. The resulting data is intended to give both the establishment and FSIS a clearer picture of where contamination risk is concentrated, supporting more targeted interventions.
WHY IT MATTERS: Information gathered through the pilot could inform future regulatory changes and support updates regarding how the Agency evaluates and enforces Salmonella performance standards. The pilot program follows a public meeting held January 14 that discussed practical strategies for reducing Salmonella illnesses tied to poultry products, signaling continued agency focus on data-driven, plant-specific control strategies rather than one-size-fits-all standards.
NCC’s TAKE: We appreciate the Agency working with industry to collect data that will aid in making informed and science-based regulatory decisions.
WHAT’S NEXT: For establishments approved to participate in this pilot, FSIS inspection personnel will routinely verify collected biomapping data. Establishments opting to participate in the CCP pilot must submit information to FSIS describing the validated Salmonella intervention in their HACCP plan.
NCC features in a short spotlight column the official representative from each of our Allied Leader and Allied Member companies. This week’s Allied Leader Spotlight is Josh Gillespie, Vice President of Sales, at BAADER.
We asked Josh three questions:
In 2-3 sentences, describe what good or service your company provides to the broiler industry: BAADER is a global corporation, offering a portfolio of wall to wall of poultry processing solutions that aim to make food processing humane, hygienic, efficient, and safe. With the help of digitalization, we offer user-friendly software and monitoring systems that increase efficiency and waste reduction. We enable our customers to create plants of the future and set new standards in the food industry.
Briefly describe your position and responsibilities within the company: As VP of Sales in BAADER Food Systems USA Inc, I am responsible for all equipment sales within the US and Canada. With over 25 years of experience in poultry processing, I utilize my expertise, professional demeanor and strategic thinking to lead the sales force and spearhead new initiatives to further strengthen our market presence.
What is your favorite chicken dish: Marry Me Chicken – rich cheesy sauce, fresh herbs, pasta and of course the star of the show, Chicken.
The USPOULTRY Board of Directors gathered in beautiful Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, June 25-27, for their summer board meeting. Thank you, USPOULTRY, for including NCC to help collaborate on initiatives that will continue moving the poultry industry forward. It was business by day and Idaho adventures in between.
Tom Super, NCC SVP of Communications, speaks to the USPOULTRY Board about opportunities for collaboration, generative artificial intelligence and other public affairs and communications issues in the poultry industry
The welcome reception and dinner was held on the front lawn of the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Members and guests watched the World Cup match between USA and Turkey on a screen outside.
The par-3 14th hole at The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, featuring the first and only floating, movable island green. The 2,200-ton, 15,000-square-foot island uses an underwater cable system to change position daily. Source: The Coeur d’Alene Resort
The ferry ride to the 14th green. L-R: Thomas Super; Tom Super, NCC; Brian Roberts, Case Farms; West Roberts. We won’t say who hit the green and who didn’t.
Celebrating America’s 250th
The closing reception & dinner was a lake cruise aboard the Mish-an-Nock. NCC members gathered for a photo. L-R: Mikell Fries, Claxton; Joel Sappenfield, Simmons; John Wright, Fieldale; Bernard Leonard, Tyson (retired) and former NCC Chair; Tom Super, NCC; Kevin McDaniel, Wayne-Sanderson and current NCC Vice Chair; Tim Stiller, Foster Farms; Bill Griffith, Peco and NCC Immediate Past Chair; Brian Roberts, Case; and Monty Henderson, George’s (retired)
This Fourth of July marks 250 years of American independence. We’re grateful for the farmers, workers, and families who help fuel the cookouts and backyard celebrations — one wing and drumstick at a time. From all of us at NCC, Happy 4th — and Happy 250th, America! #ChickenUSA
WHAT HAPPENED: The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove legal protections from thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants in the United States, meaning they could be subject to deportation. The decision, in Mullin v. Doe (Nos. 25-1083 and 25-1084), was decided June 25. The question before the Court was whether challengers to the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals from Syria and Haiti were entitled to orders postponing the terminations during litigation. The Court ruled they were not. The Court also rejected a claim that the decision to remove protections for Haitians was discriminatory. Last year, the Supreme Court in two separate decisions allowed the Trump administration to revoke the same kind of legal status from 600,000 Venezuelans in the U.S.
WHY IT MATTERS: TPS provides work authorization to nationals from designated countries experiencing conflict or humanitarian crises, and TPS holders are employed across a range of U.S. industries, including food and agriculture. The ruling follows the administration’s broader effort to wind down TPS across multiple nationalities — DHS has moved to terminate protections for nationals of Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti, and other countries, affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.
WHAT’S NEXT: Attorneys representing TPS holders are analyzing the Court’s findings to decide on next steps. NCC will continue to monitor developments as the administration implements the ruling and as litigation on related TPS designations continues in the lower courts.
Source: The Supreme Court
WHAT HAPPENED: A coalition of 17 states filed suit against California this week seeking to block enforcement of the state’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, passed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022. The lawsuit argues the law violates both the U.S. and California constitutions, and asks the court to declare it invalid and unenforceable.
WHO IS INVOLVED: Nebraska leads the coalition, joined by Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors also joined the suit.
WHY IT MATTERS: The law sets the nation’s strictest requirements for plastic packaging, requiring producers to reduce single-use plastics by 10% by 2027 and 25% by 2032, and mandating that plastic packaging be recycled at a rate of 65% by 2032. The plaintiffs argue that California’s rules would effectively force businesses nationwide — including food and agriculture companies — to overhaul their products and packaging operations to comply with a single state’s regulatory regime. Chicken processors and their suppliers rely on plastic packaging throughout the supply chain, from retail tray packs to food service formats, and a ruling upholding California’s law could have significant compliance implications across the industry.
WHAT’S NEXT: The lawsuit names as defendants the director of California’s recycling agency CalRecycle and the Circular Action Alliance, the nonprofit tasked with implementing the law. A separate legal challenge has also been filed by environmental groups who argue the final regulations were too weak. NCC will monitor the litigation and its potential implications for poultry packaging requirements.
While we are 100% behind the U.S. Men’s National Team, we kind of like France’s team uniform.
