Day 104 - 15 Mar 95 - Page 28
1 It is related to an EC directive on water. He will have
2 been applying those standards there.
3
4 Q. That is done by a different method of analysis, is it?
5 A. Yes. They are counting the colonies which are visible
6 with a low powered microscope, actually, rather than
7 counting the organisms per square centimetre. It is a
8 different method of analysis.
9
10 Q. We know that with meat the result of the analysis is
11 expressed in colonies per gramme?
12 A. Yes.
13
14 Q. Here we see under "Notes" that the swab counts are,
15 presumably, for the physical features of the building and
16 the equipment expressed as colonies forming units per
17 square centimetre. Do you see it at "Notes"?
18 A. Yes.
19
20 Q. Is that orthodox practice?
21 A. Yes, the microbiologists do seem to switch between
22 counting per gramme and per square centimetre.
23
24 Q. It might be difficult to measure a gramme of stainless
25 steel, might it not?
26 A. Indeed, yes. For meat, I mean, they still apply those
27 two measures to meat but with hard surfaces
28 obviously .....
29
30 Q. Then if you go over to page 69, you see again what appear
31 to be the same range of tests, pages 69 and 70, yes?
32 A. Yes.
33
34 Q. Somebody has put crosses against the results of trimtable,
35 trimtable, cutting block and cutting block on the first
36 page, do you see those?
37 A. Yes, I do.
38
39 Q. Also against "lairage" at page 70. Do you know what those
40 crosses indicate? They get a grade "E" in each of those
41 cases.
42 A. Yes. They are not quite as good as the Bs and Cs. The
43 actual counts are not high. They are still within
44 acceptable ranges but they call attention to themselves.
45
46 Q. Do you know whether Bristol Food Laboratories actually have
47 a numerical limit, as it were, or range within each grade?
48 A. Not in this case, because there are so many different
49 standards required by different customers. So, the
50 laboratory will use their experience to, sort of, highlight
51 areas which in the case of equipment indicate that they
52 just need to continue to pay attention to the cleaning and
53 sanitizing processes that go on. They are perfectly
54 acceptable, but the purpose of these monitoring exercises
55 is to keep a tight control on things.
56
57 Q. That report was produced on 25th March. The next page,
58 page 71, is on 25th April which is four days before
59 Ms. Hovi left. Again I ask you only to glance at that
60 one.
