Implementation of compulsory hazard analysis critical control point system and its effect on concentrations of carcass and environmental surface bacterial indicators in United Kingdom red meat slaughterhouses.

Statutory microbiological test results were collected from British meat plants over a 4-year period from June 2002 to May 2006. A total of 49,074 carcass test results from 19,409 cattle, 14,706 sheep, and 14,959 pig swabs and 95,179 environmental test results from surface swabs were obtained. These test results were donated by 94 slaughterhouses, which process about two thirds of the British national annual throughput of cattle, sheep, and pig carcasses.

Experimental comparison of excision and swabbing microbiological sampling methods for carcasses.

Bovine sides, ovine carcasses, and porcine carcasses were individually inoculated by dipping in various suspensions of a marker organism (Escherichia coli K-12 or Pseudomonas fluorescens), alone or in combination with two meat-derived bacterial strains, and were sampled by two standard methods: cotton wet-dry swabbing and excision. The samples were examined for bacterial counts on plate count agar (PCA plate counts) and on violet red brilliant green agar (VRBGA plate counts) by standard International Organization for Standardization methods. Average bacterial recoveries by swabbing, expressed as a percentage of the appropriate recoveries achieved by excision, varied widely (2 to 100%).

A comparison of wet-dry swabbing and excision sampling methods for microbiological testing of bovine, porcine, and ovine carcasses at red meat slaughterhouses.

A comparison of wet-dry swabbing and surface tissue excision of carcasses by coring was undertaken. Samples from 1,352 bovine, 188 ovine, and 176 porcine carcasses were collected from 70 separate visits to commercial slaughterhouses operating under normal conditions. The mean total aerobic viable bacterial counts (TVCs) for all species sampled by excision was 5.