Microbiological status of minced pork - A comparison of industrial and handicraft produced minced meat

Until now two different legal standards apply to the production of minced m eat. EU-licensed meat-processing plant have to follow the determinations la id down in the meat-hygiene-regulation from 21. May 1997. Butcher's shops a nd meat sections of supermarkets in which minced meat is produced, have to go by the national minced-meat-regulation. In this study in which the influ ence of the two regulations and three different operating forms on the micr obiological quality of minced meat should be evaluated, was found, that min ced meat, that is subject to the meat-hygiene-regulation shows a clearly lo wer contamination with microorganisms in almost every parameter examined, t han minced meat, that is subjected to the national minced-meat-regulation. Using the limit M for the mesophilic aerobic plate count from the meat-hygi ene-regulation by the way of comparison, 18,8 % of the samples from butcher 's shops and 47,2 % of the samples from the meat sections of supermarkets e xceed this limit, whereas the rejection rate of the EU-minced meat amounts to 4,5 %.