Cattle producers must be vigilant in their animal handling techniques to ensure broken needles don’t end up in meat, says a food safety expert.
The caution was prompted by a recent incident in Victoria, B.C., when a woman bit into a shish kebab and discovered a broken needle in the meat. The kebab was made from a sirloin steak bought at Costco and processed at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alta.
“You just can’t have this happen,” said Joyce Van Donkersgoed, provincial co-ordinator for the Alberta Beef On-Farm Food Safety Program.
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Finding needles in food is rare and cattle producers must take steps to ensure it stays that way, said Van Donkersgoed.
Good injection techniques are the most important element in prevention. They include using a proper chute or rope to restrain the animal, she said.
Older-style chutes are designed for producers to administer needles in the animals’ hindquarters, not in the neck or in the front muscles as is now recommended.
On-farm food safety programs have been designed across Canada to educate cattle producers about proper injection techniques, but some packers are seeing an increase in injection scars in the hindquarters again, she said.
In 1999, Van Donkersgoed surveyed packers, processors and retailers about lost needles. While the survey didn’t have great response, about half the packers said they’d never had an incident of needles in meat.
Pork and beef producers are also encouraged to use new metal alloy needles that make it easier to detect a needle in the meat. The new metal needles have an approximate 90 percent detection rate, compared with 20 percent detection in older needles.
“The pork industry is really pushing this,” said Donkersgoed. She noted broken needles had been discovered in two pieces of pork shipped to Japan in the past six months.
If a needle breaks, producers should attempt to remove it or have a veterinarian remove it. If the needle can’t be removed, the animal should be identified and the next owner of the animal informed.
