Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 9/19/11
 

Meat processors are nervous about how accurate new rapid test kits to detect six non-O157:H7 E. coli serotypes will be by March 2012 when USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will start testing beef trim.

Last week USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced it would declare six non-O157:H7 E. coli serogroups as adulterants in raw non-intact beef products.

Addressing the North American Meat Processors Association annual conference here on Saturday, National Meat Association CEO Barry Carpenter said the obstacle for meat processors is the race for test kit suppliers to develop effective rapid test kits that  accurately detect the pathogens before FSIS starts testing for them in beef trim in March 2012.

“If we can’t get better test kits than we have now, you are going to be hard pressed to get a COA (certificate of analysis) on trim,” he told the group, many of whom are further processors who buy beef trim from slaughter operations.

Carpenter said it is his understanding that companies using currently available rapid test kits for the six non-O157 serogroups are experiencing higher rates (up to 20 percent) of presumptive positives than occur with the test kits for E. coli O157:H7. He pointed out that while many of those turn out to be false positives, it still extends the total time product must be held to about six to seven days while further testing is completed.

This has been the experience of Dakota Dunes, S.D.-based Beef Products Inc., which started testing for non-O157 STECs earlier this year. 

Ken Peterson, FSIS Assistant Administrator for Field Operations, told Meatingplace after he addressed the NAMP conference that while he understands the concern, “We have to start somewhere.” Noting that test kits for O157:H7 have evolved and improved since 1994 when that strain was declared an adulterant, he said the tests for the six non-O157 serogroups will as well.

“Will (the tests) be better in a year? Probably. Will they be better in five years? Probably.  But we are done waiting,” he said.

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