Decontamination of cleaned personal equipment used during beef carcass processing

摘要

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 deg 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 decontaminatingtreatment 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.