The bacteriological quality of British beef 3. Frozen primal joints

The bacteriological status of 286 primal cuts stored frozen in intervention stores in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland for between 18 and 216 we eks was assessed in two surveys carried out during 1993 (120 cuts) and 1994 (166 cuts). Overall the aerobic plate count at 25 degrees C and the presum ptive pseudomonad counts were < 10(5) cm(2) on 269 (94%) and 273 (95.5%) of the cuts, respectively. Similarly the coliform and enterococcal counts wer e < 10(3) cm(2) on 98.3% and 97.9% of the cuts, respectively. These finding s suggest that the quality of dressing and butchery of the carcasses was of a generally satisfactory standard although on occasions there may have bee n suboptimum hygiene control during slaughter and butchery or some delay be fore freezing. The bacterial numbers were higher on average on the cuts obt ained from the lower part of the carcass while there was a tendency for the number of aerobic spoilage organism to decrease slightly with increasing s torage time. Evidence was obtained in the second survey which indicated dif ferences between microbiological quality of meat coming from different boni ng plants although if was not possible to make a detailed evaluation of thi s point as the number of cuts available for sampling from each plant differ ed in each year. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.