The Food Systems Innovation Center (FSIC) offers several analytical services such as shelf-life determination, microbial analysis and challenge studies, nutritional label analysis, sensory evaluation, and help with marking. Much of this work is proprietary because recipes and production practices are unique.  One such KY based large ready to eat meat producer ask the FSIC to validate the safety of several products that had been reformulated to have a “clean” label.  Which means all artificial ingredients including nitrate have been removed.  The majority of these ingredients had no effect on the products safety however nitrate is extremely important to prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum, and Listeria monocytogenes.  Both of these pathogens are associated with a high mortality rate in humans.  In order to validate that the reformulated products could be produced safely the FSIC had to contaminate the raw products, cook them under the same conditions as the company was utilizing and test the finished products for pathogen survival.  The results of this study was then reviewed by the USDA to verify that the process could produce a safe product. Fortunately, the USDA has accepted