Bacteriological evaluation of groups of beef carcasses before the wash at six Alberta abattoirs

A method has been developed for the bacteriological evaluation of groups of beef carcasses which can be used to measure the degree of control over hygiene during hide removal and carcass dressing in abattoirs. This method, which enumerates aerobic mesophilic bacteria automatically using a hydrophobic grid membrane filter, was applied at six abattoirs. Two hundred excision samples (5 x 5 x 0.5 cm) were taken at 10 sites on the external surface of a group of 20 carcasses (five carcasses were sampled on each of four consecutive daily visits) for group-carcass evaluation at each abattoir. For each abattoir, the mean log10 Most Probable Number of Growth Units (MPNGU) and between-carcass variance component were obtained for each site and the average over sites. Using the average within-abattoir variance of this study and previously published studies involving 76 additional carcasses (Jericho et al. 1993), it was determined that 20 carcasses are more than adequate to estimate the mean log10 MPNGU per cm2 within 0.5 units at a site. The distribution of the log10 MPNGU per cm2 over the 10 sites was compared for the abattoirs, and sites were found to cluster into 2-4 homogenous groups. The means over sites of log10 MPNGU per cm2 for the abattoirs ranged from 1.52 to 2.64 and were unrelated to line speed.