Effects of slaughtering operations on carcass contamination in an Irish pork production plant

Irish Veterinary Journal

Aideen I McKevitt¹  Efstathios S Giotis¹  Paul Wheatley² 

[1] School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland;NICHE, School of Biomedical Science, University of Ulster, Coleraine, UK

关键词: Pork slaughtering;    Critical control points;    HACCP;    Enterobacteriaceae;    TVC;   

Others  :  805695
DOI  :  10.1186/2046-0481-67-1

 received in 2013-07-16, accepted in 2014-01-12,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Microbiological standards within pork slaughter processing plants in the European Union are currently governed by Commission Regulation (EC) 2073/2005, which describes detailed performance criteria at specific stages of the procedure (following carcass dressing and before chilling) for total viable counts (TVC), Enterobacteriaceae (EB) and Salmonella spp. In this study, 95 carcasses from an Irish pork slaughter plant were sampled by swabbing 100 cm² of surface at three sites (belly, ham, jowl) to examine the effects of eight processing stages (stunning, bleeding, scalding, singeing, polishing, evisceration, final inspection and chilling) on contamination levels.

Results

TVC ranged from approximately 1.7–6.3 log cfu cm² during sampling. There were significant reductions in TVC for all sites after scalding and singeing (p < 0.05), whilst there was a significant increase in counts after polishing and evisceration (p < 0.05) compared with preceding stages. EB counts indicated hygienic weak points in the examined slaughter plant leading to faecal (cross)-contamination, with elevated counts after stunning, bleeding and evisceration (p < 0.05), compared with final counts after chilling.

Conclusions

Although the bacterial numbers reported in this study may reflect specific plant practices and temporal influences, results show that contamination can be introduced at various steps in the process and highlight the importance of monitoring locations other than those required by legislation within the process. Monitoring can be used to establish baseline levels for high-risk stages specific to each plant and to assess the effectiveness of additional interventions.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Wheatley et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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