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Food Protection Trends
Abstracts - June 2003
A Survey of Dairy Producer Practices and Attitudes
Pertaining to Dairy Market Beef Food Safety
Decontamination of Cleaned Personal Equipment Used
during Beef Carcass Processing
A Survey of Dairy Producer Practices
and Attitudes Pertaining to Dairy Market Beef Food Safety
Matthew J. VanBaale,*-1 John C. Galland,-1 Doreene R. Hyatt,-2and
George A. Milliken-3
1-Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology, Kansas
State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506;
2-Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins,
Colorado 80525;
3-Department of Statistics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506
SUMMARY
A national survey of dairy producers assessed their willingness to improve
safety of food products from their farms (response rate 9%). The majority
considered a veterinarian as their first choice for information concerning dairy
market food safety, with more than 33% reporting that they would pay for
veterinarians to perform food safety assessments. Nearly half reported that they
had been well informed by their veterinarians concerning food safety issues.
Income from market beef was important to 75%, but few had toured a slaughter
facility and less than 35% were aware that HACCP was required in US slaughter
facilities. Most believed that
consumer food safety concerns affected their profits, but less than half
reported that on-farm HACCP would reduce the risk of foodborne disease.
Several reported that they would change practices if doing so would
increase profits, and most preferred that profits come from incentives paid by
slaughter establishments. Few preferred government subsidies, and most opposed
on-farm government regulatory programs. Ultimately, respondents expected
consumers to pay for on-farm food safety practices and expected little of the
corresponding increase in price to trickle to them. Overall, results indicate that producers might benefit from
better knowledge of HACCP. Further
research is needed to help producers determine if implementing on-farm HACCP
improves profits as well as public health.
Decontamination of Cleaned Personal
Equipment Used during Beef Carcass Processing
C. O. Gill,* andJ. C. McGinnis
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lacombe Research Centre,
6000 C & E Trail, Lacombe, Alberta, Canada T4L 1W1
SUMMARY
After the usual cleaning of personal equipment used in carcass dressing or
breaking processes at a beef packing plant, aerobes were recovered from most
items of equipment at numbers up to > 6 log CFU/item; coliforms and Escherichia
coli were recovered from a minority of items at numbers up to > 4 and
> 3 log CFU/item, respectively. After
treatment of cleaned equipment by immersion in water of 83 + 2°C for 60
s the numbers of aerobes recovered from a group of 25 steel mesh gloves were 5
log units less than the numbers recovered from cleaned, untreated gloves, and
coliforms and E. coli were not recovered. Similar reductions in the numbers of
aerobes were achieved when the same treatment was applied to cleaned rubber
aprons and sharpening steels, but coliforms and E. coli were recovered in small numbers from some of those treated
items. It appears that current
cleaning procedures will not reliably remove bacteria from personal items of
equipment used at beef packing plants. Some
decontaminating treatment for personal equipment seems to be needed if meat is
not to be contaminated by the bacteria that can persist on such equipment after
it is cleaned.
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