Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 8/18/11

The road to replicating lab results in plants on various E. coli O157:H7 interventions is one that takes patience and a lot of trial and error, meat processors told their peers on Wednesday at an E. coli prevention conference in Chicago presented by the North American Meat Processors Association.

Roger Rausch of Wasatch Meat Inc. described the company’s two-year journey that included a custom-made machine to allow 360-degree application of a combined ultraviolet and ozone intervention. Wasatch, based in Salt Lake City, is a 50-employee company that cuts steaks and grinds beef.

Rausch detailed a long list of process and machinery adjustments that also included changing labs to one that could better detect the actual reductions being achieved. With a goal of a two-log reduction, the company performed a number of in-plant validation studies against surrogate pathogens.     

Like many companies, Wasatch was working with very low E. coli counts coming into the plant, making the two-log reduction that much more challenging.

“We learned a lot about total plate counts…it took us two years to get it up and running,” he told conference participants.

Cargill’s approach
Cargill Vice President for Technical Services Angie Siemens told the group that Cargill is focusing more on additional E. coli interventions on the “hot” (slaughter) side of the plant, than on further post-chill chemical interventions.

She also said Cargill is putting a great emphasis on knowing its suppliers and understanding the risk profile of the raw materials entering the plant.

“We keep pushing for cleaner raw materials,” she said, adding, that Cargill is currently reducing pathogen counts as much by working with its suppliers as by adding more post-chill chemical interventions.

She said the challenge Cargill is having with achieving two-log pathogen reductions through post-chill chemical interventions is getting the chemical to find the pathogens when pathogen counts are low to begin with.

In terms of pre-harvest interventions, Siemens said the results of the 85,000-head vaccine study Cargill participated in were inconclusive because of a lack of pathogen positives on the control side of the study. She said more trials (Cargill is not directly involved in these) are in progress this summer with results expected later this fall.

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