AN EVALUATION OF ONLINE REPROCESSING ON VISUAL CONTAMINATION AND MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF BROILERS

Recent advances in equipment design, including more efficient inside/o utside bird washers, have been proposed as being more effective in red ucing visible contamination during processing. The purpose of this stu dy was to evaluate such a system. Guidelines focused on the occurrence of visible contamination and microbiological quality of broilers iden tified as being visually contaminated but allowed to proceed on-line ( ''reprocessing'') through evisceration and inside/outside bird washing as opposed to being removed for off-line reprocessing. Results indica ted that based on visual scores, the on-line processing reduced the ne ed for off-line reprocessing by 73 to 84%. The incidence for either Sa lmonella or Campylobacter was not affected by treatment. There were no significant effects of treatment on aerobic plate counts, Campylobact er number, or coliforms. These results indicate that on-line processin g of visually contaminated carcasses could greatly reduce the number o f carcasses currently being subjected to off-line reprocessing without negative effects on total bacterial counts or presence of pathogenic organisms.