USE OF A TEMPERATURE FUNCTION INTEGRATION TECHNIQUE TO ASSESS THE MAINTENANCE OF CONTROL OVER AN OFFAL COOLING PROCESS

Over a 6 month period, temperature histories were routinely collected by staff at a beef packing plant from boxes of hearts and livers passi ng through an offal cooling process. The time of logger placement, the position of the monitored box within a product stack and the position of the stack within the freezer were recorded for each temperature hi story. Each temperature history was integrated with respect to a model describing the dependency on temperature of the anaerobic growth of E scherichia coli. The E. coli proliferation values were not significant ly effected by the times of logger placement, the in-stack positions o f monitored boxes or the freezer location of monitored stacks. The rou tinely, non-randomly collected data were comparable with those randoml y collected in a previous assessment of the process. Simple control ch arts indicated the maintenance of control over the process. Temperatur e function integration data can apparently be applied in commercial ci rcumstances for the control of meat cooling processes, as part of a Ha zard Analysis: Critical Control Point (HACCP) System.