BANFF, Alta. – Many of the procedures designed to reduce bacteria levels in beef and pork aren’t good enough, says an Agriculture Canada meat scientist.
Packing plants have strict procedures to clean the surface of carcasses but once these are moved to the cutting table, the real hazard occurs, said Colin Gill during a food safety conference held here.
Working surfaces and cutting equipment for breaking carcasses into primal cuts harbor huge populations of harmful bacteria like E. coli and listeria.
“It won’t make a scrap of difference to the quality of your hamburgers if the E. coli was put on the manufacturing beef when you chop it into primal cuts,” he said.
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Working surfaces are not as clean as they could be and contamination of meat during carcass breaking is a greater danger to consumers than sporadic contamination during carcass dressing.
Agreements to implement the program known as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points are not perfect, he said.
Unique situation
Individual plants must analyze their own critical control points where contamination may occur. These points have to be identified with appropriate microbial data at every stage of the meat processing chain.
“If you want to know where you are putting the bacteria on your product, you’ve got to get back to your staff,” Gill said.
Nor can plants rely on paperwork or a generic sanitation plan.
“You cannot verify HACCP systems by looking up the paperwork. You must have some real objective data on what your system is actually doing.”
When people become ill or die from eating contaminated food, plants around the world are forced to look at their sanitation practices. Scientists like Gill say many of the traditional methods of cleaning a carcass have no real effect. Removing contamination by trimming away traces of fecal contamination or vacuuming hocks and rumps has little effect.
Better methods to kill E. coli and salmonella on carcasses surfaces have emerged. Some of the approved methods include pasteurization using steam or hot water. Spray chill and air chilling also work, as long as the workers knows how to do it properly.
