Modelling transfer of Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 during simulation of grinding of pork.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to develop a model to predict cross-contamination of Salmonella during grinding of pork.


RESULTS
Transfer rates of Salmonella were measured in three experiments, where between 10 and 20 kg meat was ground into 200-g portions. In each experiment, five pork slices of about 200 g per slice were inoculated with 8-9 log-units of Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 and used for building up the contamination in the grinder. Subsequently, Salmonella-free slices were ground and collected as samples of c. 200 g minced pork. Throughout the process, representative samples were quantitatively analysed for Salmonella. A model suggested by Nauta et al. (2005) predicting cross-contamination of Campylobacter in poultry processing and two modified versions of this model were tested.


CONCLUSIONS
The present study observed a tailing phenomenon of transfer of Salmonella during a small-scale grinding process. It was, therefore, hypothesized that transfer occurred from two environmental matrices inside the grinder and a model was developed. The developed model satisfactorily predicted the observed concentrations of Salmonella during its cross-contamination in the grinding of up to 110 pork slices.


CONCLUSIONS
The proposed model provides an important tool to examine the effect of cross-contamination in quantitative microbial risk assessments and might also be applied to various other food processes where cross-contamination is involved.
National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Søborg, Denmark. clemo@food.dtu.dk
C O A
CO
Møller
M J
MJ
Nauta
B B
BB
Christensen
P
P
Dalgaard
T B
TB
Hansen
D000818:Animals; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005511:Food Handling; D005516:Food Microbiology; D008460:Meat / Q000382:microbiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012478:Salmonella Food Poisoning; D012486:Salmonella typhimurium / Q000502:physiology*; D013552:Swine