Comparison of the destructive and non-destructive sampling techniques for microbiological control of meat surfaces - 1. swine carcase

According to the decision of 2001/471/EC, published in Germany by the announcement of BMVEL (2001) on the 29th November 2001, all meat suppliers have to conduct within the scope of the HACCP methodology principle obligatory microbiological checks on general hygiene since the 1st of July 2003. This involves the check up of the cleaning and disinfection success in the slaughterhouses and cutting plants as well as the bacteriological surface contamination of meat. The decision allows as sampling methods particularly destructive methods, but also non-destructive methods on the basis of swabbing for carcases. If other methods are used for the sampling, these methods have to be verified in comparison to the standard method. With the aim of verification of sampling methods, we tested the. destructive and different non-destructive methods (swabbing and contact plate methods) for the determination of the surface germ contamination of pork in a meat company. In this first publication we introduce the results of our examination on pork carcases. Under defined conditions we came to the result that not only the swabbing method but also contact plate methods are suitable for bacteriological samples. Furthermore, the comparability of the received results with the reference method (destructive method) can be guaranteed by the adoption of a simple algorithm.