Evaluation of cross-contamination on automatic viscera removal equipment.
Contamination of poultry carcasses by fecal or ingested material is a major problem in the processing of poultry products. It was determined that the automatic equipment used to process uncontaminated carcasses could be used to clean and reprocess contaminated carcasses and significantly reduce the manual labor required to reprocess these carcasses. The potential for cross-contamination of the automatic viscera removal equipment was tested by microbiological evaluation, and it was determined that cross-contamination by this equipment was not a problem.
Thayer
S G
SG
Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens 30602-4875.
Walsh
J L
JL
D000818:Animals; D001420:Bacteria, Aerobic / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D002645:Chickens / Q000382:microbiology*; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D004755:Enterobacteriaceae / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004866:Equipment Contamination; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005516:Food Microbiology; D005525:Food-Processing Industry / Q000295:instrumentation; D007422:Intestines / Q000382:microbiology; D012475:Salmonella / Q000302:isolation & purification*