Evaluation of the hygienic performances of the processes for cleaning, dressing and cooling pig carcasses at eight packing plants

Interventions to control Salmonella contamination during poultry, cattle and pig slaughter

“…It could be presumed that normal water wash of pork carcasses would not have a significant impact on the pathogen, because it reduces TVC on average by 0.3 log only (Gill et al, 2000). In respect to heat (hot water, steam) treatment of pig carcasses, no information related to Salmonella reductions is currently available.…”

“…Regulatory required chilling of pork carcasses to ≤7°C within 24 h is an effective tool to suppress Salmonella growth and reduce their counts in order to prevent their entry to further steps of the meat chain, and also to suppress the background microbiota, although the TVC changes only very little (Beutling, 1992;Gill et al, 2000;Ortner, 1988;Savell et al, 2004). On the other hand, there is a lack of information on possible between-carcass cross-contamination due to physical contact between them and/or rapid air circulation.…”

Antibacterial activity of decontamination treatments for pig carcasses

“…Published data indicate that under commercial conditions, chilling can result in increases, decreases or no changes of bacterial contamination, dependent on temperature, air speed, humidity, carcass spacing and duration (Bolton et al, 2002;Gill et al, 2000;Lenahan et al, 2009;Nesbakken et al, 2008;Pearce et al, 2004;Rahkio et al, 1992;Spescha et al, 2006;Yu et al, 1999). Spescha et al (2006) investigated the antibacterial efficacy of blast chilling and conventional chilling under commercial conditions.…”

“…Furthermore, several studies investigated the antibacterial efficacy of chilling procedures under commercial conditions without exact designation of process parameters (Bolton et al, 2002;Gill et al, 2000;Lenahan et al, 2009). Inconsistent effects ranging from moderate decreases to slight increases of the bacterial levels on pig carcasses were thereby observed.…”

“…Therefore, hide decontamination treatments are of special interest in the slaughter of cattle and sheep (Biss & Hathaway, 1998;Loretz, Stephan, & Zweifel, 2011;Sheridan, 1998). With regard to the slaughtering of pigs, the mentioned process stages of scalding, dehairing, singeing and polishing result in pig carcass surfaces, which are visibly clean and largely free of hair (Gill et al, 2000). However, despite this appearance, pig carcasses might be highly contaminated with bacteria (Gill, Bedard, & Jones, 1997;Gill & Bryant,1993) and therefore the surface of pig carcasses constitutes an important contamination source during subsequent slaughtering and dressing.…”