Control of product temperatures during the distribution of retail ready beef to stores and vacuum packaged beef to restaurants

摘要

Temperature histories were collected from product in consignments of retail-ready pucks of chilled beef prepared at two central cutting plants for delivery to retail stores, and in consignments of vacuum packaged, chilled beef dispatched from two warehouses to restaurants. Multiple consignments of product from each facility were loaded to individual refrigerated trucks for sequential delivery to retail stores or restaurants. Times between the dispatch and delivery of product ranged from <1 to about40 h; although some temperature histories extended to longer times because of storage after delivery. Despite the occurrence of excursions to warm temperatures in some histories, the temperatures of products were generally maintained or reduced during transportation. Estimations of bacterial proliferation by integration of temperature histories with respect to models that describe the dependencies on temperature of rates of bacterial growth indicated that the proliferations of Escherichta coli, Listeriamonocytogenes and lactic acid bacteria were all adequately contained during the transportation of product. However, storage efficiency factors calculated for temperature histories ranged widely for product from all facilities, which indicates that therecontinues to be extensive possibilities for increasing product storage life by improved control over product temperatures, particularly during storage.