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HACCP application in food processing plants could improve food safety and lead to a reduction of food-borne diseases. Apparent lack of HACCP implementation in several food businesses may be due to presence of various technical barriers. The aim of this review is to explore the lists of motives and barriers to implementation of the HACCP system as outlined in the published literature and to evaluate respective impact. Lack of awareness of HACCP, no perceived benefits, lack of training, management regressions, variability of production lines and individuality of each product, variability of the consumers’ demands and small size of an enterprise have been found to have negative effects on implementation and performance of a HACCP system. Also, costs of development, as well as application and maintenance of the system seem to constitute a severe constraint. According to the authors’ opinion, lack of management commitment, in addition to lack of personnel training and costs are the main constraints to appropriate implementation of HACCP.On the other hand, motivation for HACCP application provides an improvement of processing procedures’ efficiency, decrease of recalls, regulatory demands, enhancement of firm reputation, costs reduction, customers’ demands, previous experiences with food safety issues, trained staff and management decision. Finally, legislation cannot provide adequate motivation for appropriate HACCP implementation, so that market motivation is, in our view, the key factor that can lead to management commitment.

European Union legislation approach to meat safety assurance advocates use of strict preventive hygiene measures and procedures to overcome threats by pathogens. Therefore, there is no need for carcass decontamination at the last stage of slaughtering process, using intervention methods. In contrast, the United States permit and regulate intervention decontamination methods. Generally, a HACCP system may use intervention treatments. These may be based solely on a non intervention system or use a combination of both. Interventions have the advantage of achieving a consistent reduction in bacterial contamination and require less manual input, but on the other hand, may also lead to carcass discolouration, produce large quantities of waste water and be relatively expensive. Moreover, intervention methods could constitute a means of concealing poor hygiene conditions during slaughtering or, even more, their residues could be a potential hazard for food safety. Non-intervention systems have the advantages of being relatively inexpensive, easy to implement and more preventive. However, these systems rely heavily on human effort and the possibility for error is considerably higher than the intervention systems. There are many carcass decontamination methods, as described in the relevant literature and used in slaughterhouses worldwide, such as: (i) cold/warm water washing, (ii) hot water washing, (iii) steam vacuuming, (iv) steam pasteurization, (v) irradiation, (vi) organic acid application, (vii) combination of organic acid application with other decontamination treatments and (viii) other chemical treatments. Aim of this review is to provide information on the relevant literature, as well as describe and Ncomment on the questions raised.